Alberto
Giacometti 1901-1966
Swiss painter/sculptor.He is one of the few that realized that "reality escapes us every moment of our life" and that it is
a worthwhile effort to try to "capture" its fleeting moments, even though it is likely impossible to succeed.
But, as he said, "the failure shall be the measure of success."
("He who does not attempt the impossible will scarcely do anything worthwhile.")
"The sense of depth
begets silence, drowns objects in silence."
Alberto Giacometti.
Self portraits ( 1
and 2), pencil on paper
drawing
1
drawing
2
"I had just experienced in reverse what I had felt some months earlier in front of living beings.
At that time I was beginning to see heads in the void, in the space which surrounds them.
The first time that I saw the head I was looking at become fixed, immobilized definitively in a moment in time,
I shook with terror as never before in my life and a cold sweat ran down my back.
What I was looking at was no longer a living head, but an object like any other, no, different,
not like any other object, but like something which was alive and dead at the same time."
Alberto Giacometti.
Three paintings, oil
on canvas
Three portraits:
"Annette"
(his wife)
"His mother""Jean
Genêt"
"His statues seem to belong to a bygone age, to have been discovered after night and time --who fashioned them
cleverly-- had corroded them to give them this feeling, at once soft and hard, of eternity passing.
Or perhaps, they emerged from a crucible, the residue of terrible heat: the flames extinguished, that is what remains.
"But what flames!
"Giacometti once told me that he had the idea of sculpting a statue and then burying it. (One immediately thinks:
"Let the earth be gentle to it.") Not for it to be discovered, or only much later when he himself and even the memory
of his name would have disappeared.
"Was this burial an offering to the dead?..."
Jean Genêt.
Two sculptures (bronze)
"Annette"
"Grande tête" side view"Grande
tête" frontal view
"What interests me in all
paintings is resemblance--that is, what is resemblance for me: something
which makes me discover more of the world."
"He's posed for me ten thousand times. When he poses I no longer recognize him. I want to make him pose so that I can see what I see."
Giacometti.
(He was commenting
on working with his brother Diego posing as model.)
Painting, oil on canvas
"Tête"
"Instead of seeing a person on the screen, I saw black stains which moved. I watched my neighbors and, suddenly,
I saw them as I had never seen them before."
Alberto Giacometti.
(He made this remark after a trip to the
movie theater.)
Most of the reproductions
presented here come from the excellent "Maeght--Dupin" book.
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