gveranon
Grimscribe
Others here may already know this, but I recently discovered that one of Giorgio de Chirico's paintings is entitled The Red Tower. I find it intriguing to consider that Thomas Ligotti's story "The Red Tower" may have been inspired (at least in part) by this painting. The first few sentences of Ligotti's story seem to be a fairly close description of the tower in Chirico's painting:
"The ruined factory stood three stories high in an otherwise featureless landscape. Although somewhat imposing on its own terms, it occupied only the most unobtrusive place within the gray emptiness of its surroundings, its presence serving as a mere accent upon a desolate horizon. No road led to the factory; nor were there any traces of one that might have led to it at some time in the distant past. If there had ever been such a road it would have been rendered useless as soon as it arrived at one of the four, red-bricked sides of the factory, even in the days when the facility was in full operation. The reason for this was simple: no doors had been built into the factory, no loading docks or entranceways allowed penetration of the outer walls of the structure, which was solid brick on all four sides without even a single window below the level of the second floor."
There are some differences, of course: Ligotti's factory has four sides, and the tower in the painting appears to be cylindrical; Ligotti's factory has no door, and the tower in the painting appears to have a door, in an otherwise featureless ground floor; etc. But overall I find the resemblance to be striking. I don't really have anything to add to this; I just thought others here might be interested.
"The ruined factory stood three stories high in an otherwise featureless landscape. Although somewhat imposing on its own terms, it occupied only the most unobtrusive place within the gray emptiness of its surroundings, its presence serving as a mere accent upon a desolate horizon. No road led to the factory; nor were there any traces of one that might have led to it at some time in the distant past. If there had ever been such a road it would have been rendered useless as soon as it arrived at one of the four, red-bricked sides of the factory, even in the days when the facility was in full operation. The reason for this was simple: no doors had been built into the factory, no loading docks or entranceways allowed penetration of the outer walls of the structure, which was solid brick on all four sides without even a single window below the level of the second floor."
There are some differences, of course: Ligotti's factory has four sides, and the tower in the painting appears to be cylindrical; Ligotti's factory has no door, and the tower in the painting appears to have a door, in an otherwise featureless ground floor; etc. But overall I find the resemblance to be striking. I don't really have anything to add to this; I just thought others here might be interested.
