Finite Homage

Cover art for PlayStation 2 video game IcoWhile I was researching yesterday’s story about Giorgio de Chirico, I came across one of his evocative paintings of two figures running through a cityscape … that turned out to be the cover of Ico, a Japanese PlayStation 2 video game released in 2001! It made me chuckle that I was momentarily fooled, but I was also impressed by its verisimilitude to de Chirico’s style.

The designer of the game, Fumito Ueda, painted it himself, saying that the surrealistic world of de Chirico matched the allegoric world of Ico. He was particularly inspired by de Chirico’s painting of a tower in The Nostalgia of the Infinite (the last painting in yesterday’s story). While the art of the video game was lauded, I was disappointed to discover it was typical of Japanese animé.

Goes to show you can’t judge even a video game by its cover!