Along with Henry Moore's, Alberto Giacometti's (1901-1966) sculptures are the most recognizable 20th-century sculptures. Although the often massive and empty eye-socketed Moore figures (usually in groups) differ considerably from the elongated Giacometti figures (which ranged in size from that of matchsticks to taller than life and when there was more than one figure, each was isolated form the others), both were very gifted at drawing. Giacometti was also a fascinating painter. His paintings seem like drawings with some additional color, but often have so many layers as to be three dimensional. (In his memoir of posing for Giacometti, James Lord records the artist as saying: "The more one works on a picture, the more impossible it becomes to finish it.")
Both from what I have read about him (mostly memoirs by James Lord, but also essays by Sartre and Genet) and from the evidence of the two documentaries on the Arte/Facets Video DVD, he was something of an art saint, totally devoted to his "researches" into portraying human subjects.
They often seem anguished in expression. Although he does not appear anguished (au contraire, though intense, he seems to enjoy working and talking),Giacometti was never satisfied that any of his works was done (his brother Diego decided when to take them away and cast them), and inveterately started over (that's how the layers of paint accumulated), but comes across as being genial and humble. He says that results are secondary to playing with matter. In the film, he claims he tried to finish each one "as soon as possible." To another of his sitters, David Sylvester, he said, ""I see something, find it marvelous, want to try and do it. Whether it fails or whether it comes off in the end becomes secondary. . . . So long as I've learned something about why."
Shows and sales (fame and fortune) did not interest him. He definitely was not materialistic, working with his brother Diego in a tiny studio in Montparnasse (46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron) over which was an even tinier bedroom with his few possessions (two small ancient Egyptian sculptures and a portrait of him as a child done by his father were among the few), working long hours out of fascination with the work.
Born in Borgonovo, Switzerland (in the Bregaglia Valley, just north of the Italian border), he grew up in the nearby town of Stampa, and returned there regularly after moving to Paris in 1922. He was in some sense discovered by André Masson. From 1930-34 he was the sculptor among the surrealists, but he followed Louis Aragon out and was never again associated with any group. He was very interested in literature and had many friends who were writers (in addition to Aragon, André Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, André Breton, Jean Genet, Michel Leiris, Jacques Prévert, and Jean-Paul Sartre are mentioned in the 1963 documentary; Samuel Beckett, surprisingly, is not).
In the 1963 documentary made by Jean-Marie Drot, Giacometti said that it was very difficult for him to see objects in space, that is, that he could lose himself in a side view or the front view, but not both or the three-dimensionality. He rejects the interpretation that he was trying to give permanence to mortal existence, though acknowledging that many saw that as his intent.
In addition to being interviewed while he worked on a piece, the film-makers accompanied Giacometti to a major retrospective exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich (where I recall a significant permanent collection of Giacometti works). I gather the film was shot before Giacometti was diagnosed with cancer.
The 2000 documentary has some color footage of Giacometti wearing glasses while working and analytic reminisces of many who knew him, the most famous of whom is the painter Balthus. Titled "What is a head?", the documentary made by Michel Van Zele is longer (the peculiar length of 64 minutes, in contrast to the 52-minute on that was "emission 9" in "Les Heures Chaude de Montparnasse"). It is also more biographical, though not at all linear, and examines the genesis of several specific works rather than his general philosophy of art.
Near the end, it goes back to recall the young Albert Giacometti going with his father to Italy and discovering in rapid succession Cezanne, Tintoretto, and Giotto (while loathing Titian) and showing some of the works in the Louvre he particularly admired, including some Chaldean sculptures he preferred to the Greco-Roman (more rounded, three-dimensional) sculptural tradition. (I wish someone had asked him about Etruscan sculptures, which were also often tiny with somewhat similarly abstracted, emaciated figures.)
Neither documentary attempts to explain Giacometti. (Or why most of his female figures are immobile and most of his male ones are striding.) Both have dissonant modernist music, the 1963 one music by Swiss composer Frank Martin, the 2000 one music by the French composer Henri Dutileux. (plus some faux-ancient choral work).
Having Giacometti on-camera working and talking and looking at his work in Zürich is more exhilarating to me than having him talked about by others, though the 2000 film shows (and talks about) his earlier work and thereby provides more of an introduction to his trajectory (albeit not at all in chronological order). Having watched them both, I am interested in undertaking reading James Lord's Giacometti biography (having enjoyed his account of sitting for Giacometti in A Giacometti Portrait and the nearly hundred-page memoir in Lord's Some Remarkable Men.
(BTW, the unique extended recording of Giacometti is dubbed into English in "Face to Face with Giacometti." IMO, the whole point of Drot's film was to see and hear Giacometti talking about his art!)
----
In that Giacometti was a familiar figure in Montparnasse for decades and that the documentaries are in French, I think this qualifies as a "French find" for Barbara passing 400.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.