"Pictor classicus sum". Il ritorno e l’enigma. La prima testimonianza del termine ‘metafisica’ nell‘incontro a Parigi tra Giorgio De Chirico e Dimitris Pikionis

In 1912, two Greek friends who had known each other during their student days in Greece met again in Paris. They were Giorgio De Chirico and Dimitris Pikionis. This meeting was recalled in a well-known autobiography published by Pikionis, in which De Chirico mentions the term "metaphysics" for the first time. The word comes into being in Greek between exiled friends, who used it frequently. During that encounter De Chirico showed Pikionis his self-portrait, which was also accompanied by the following motto in Latin: QUID AMABO NISI QUOD AENIGMA EST, a kind of emblem. In 1920 De Chirico painted another self-portrait and in the accompanying motto substituted the word "aenigma" with the term "metaphysics".