Abstract

Modernism in the early 20th century has usually been viewed as a radical break with the past and tradition. Nevertheless, there are a great deal of direct references to classical antiquity in many works of modernist artists. This apparent contradiction forces us to rethink the notion of a radical break between the new and the past. It is with this in mind that the present article focuses on one of the most exiting periods in European cultural history. In particular, the article refers to two attempts to revitalize classical antiquity during the first decades of the 20th century. These two attempts are illustrated by the Portuguese writer, Fernando Pessoa, and the Italian painter, Giorgio de Chirico. Their works are not only characteristic of the marked revival of classical antiquity in the first years of Modernism, but they also reveal that this revival is more than a simple “new classicism”. Insofar as this new/ past dualism, the work of Pessoa and de Chirico should be better described as an updated mythological thinking.