Alberto Giacometti: biography and sculptures. Exclusion wall with the hands of Alberto Giacometti What technique is used in the sculpture of a spider
Alberto Giacometti (Italian: Alberto Giacometti, October 10, 1901, Borgonovo, Stampa, Switzerland - January 11, 1966, Chur, Switzerland, buried in Borgonovo) - Swiss sculptor, painter and graphic artist, one of the greatest masters of the 20th century.
Giacometti was born on October 10, 1901 in the Borgonovo district of the Swiss commune of Stampa in the family of the artist Giovanni Giacometti. Alberto's interest in art arose in early childhood, when he began to sculpt and paint. In 1919-20 Studied painting in Geneva, at the School of Fine Arts and at the School of Arts and Crafts in the class of sculpture. In 1920 and 1921 he traveled to Italy, where he became acquainted with the classics of Italian art and the monuments of Ancient Rome.
From 1922 he lived and worked in Paris, where he became close to Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, Picasso, Miro, Max Ernst, Sartre, Beckett and others. He studied at the Grand Chaumiere studio in Paris (1922-1925) with E. A. Bourdelle. He spent the summer months in Switzerland.
Giacometti's early works were made in a realistic manner, but in Paris he was influenced by Cubism ("Torso", 1925; "Characters", 1926-1927), and was interested in the art of Africa, Oceania, and ancient America ("Head", 1925; "Crouching Man" , 1926; “Spoon Woman”, 1926).
Published in the magazine “Surrealism in the Service of the Revolution.” In 1927, his works were presented at the Salon of the Tuileries, the first personal exhibition took place in 1932. Sculpture of these years (“Spoon Woman”, 1926; “Cage”, 1930; “Woman with a Cut Throat”, 1932; “Surreal Table”, 1933 ) combines elements of cubism with the archaic plastic arts of Oceania, dream fantasy, aggression and eroticism.
After the Second World War, during which Giacometti lived in Geneva, he came to a new, more humanistic style in sculptures, portraiture and graphics (“Walking Man”, 1947; “Portrait of Annette”, ca. 1950; “Bust of Diego”, 1954 ).
In the post-war period, Giacometti was noted by many, including Sartre and Genet, as an outstanding existentialist artist. His thin figures, appearing alone in the vast expanse of space, generally express the sense of individual isolation characteristic of the French avant-garde. The writer Francis Ponge vividly reflected this aspect of Giacometti’s work in the article “Reflexions sur les statuettes, figures et peintures d’Alberto Giacometti,” published in Cahiers d’Art, Paris, 1951.
“Man... a human individual... a free person... I... am an executioner and a victim at the same time... at the same time a hunter and a prey... A man - and a lonely person - who has lost touch - in a dilapidated, suffering world - who is looking for himself - starting from scratch. Exhausted, exhausted, thin, naked. Wandering aimlessly in the crowd. A man worried about a man suffering terror from a man. Self-asserting himself of late in a hieratic position of the highest elegance. The pathos of extreme exhaustion, a personality that has lost touch. The man at the pillar of his contradictions is no longer sacrificing himself. Burnt. You're right, dear friend. The man on the pavement is like molten iron; he cannot lift his heavy legs. Beginning with Greek sculpture, with Laurent and Maillol, man burned at the stake! It is undeniably true that after Nietzsche and Baudelaire the destruction of values accelerated... They dug around him, his values, got under his skin and all in order to feed the fire? Man not only has nothing, he is nothing more than his Self.”
In the sculpture of the mature Giacometti, he was occupied with the problem of the relationship between volumes and masses, the mystery of the human figure, in painting and drawing - the problem of spatial depth, the mystery of the human face.
In the city of Cure, where Alberto Giacometti died, one of the streets was named after him (German: Giacomettistrasse). Featured on the 100 Swiss franc note.
The works of Alberto Giacometti are highly valued on the art market. In February 2010, at Sotheby's London auction, Giacometti's sculpture "Man Walking I" was sold for a record amount for works of art at that time of 65 million pounds sterling (more than $104 million).
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While traveling in Italy at the age of 19, his young companion suddenly died in front of Alberto’s eyes. Since then, thoughts about the fragility of life and the inevitability of death have not left Giacometti. After this incident, he slept only with the light on.
Beginning of the biography
Alberto Giacometti was born October 10, 1901 (died January 11, 1966). His homeland is the small village of Borgonovo in the then-existing municipality of Stampa, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland.
Giovanni and Annetta Giacometti, 1925-1931
He was the eldest of four children of the Swiss painter Giovanni Giacometti (1868–1933) and Annetta Giacometti-Stampa (1871–1964). Three brothers grew up in a creative environment and subsequently they all connected their lives with art. Diego Giacometti (1902-1985) became a designer and sculptor. Bruno Giacometti (1907-2012) - architect. He was one of the most famous architects after World War II in Switzerland. Bruno lived a very long life and died at the age of 105. Their sister Ottilie died after giving birth to their son at the age of 33.
Family. Giovanni and Annetta Giacometti with their children.
Alberto Giacometti's path in creativity
Alberto Giacometti turned out to be the most gifted of the children. Since childhood, he loved to draw and sculpt sculptures and quickly realized that he was talented. His models were his close, but most often for many years, younger brother Diego.
In 1919-1920, Alberto studied at the Geneva School of Fine Arts, and then went to Italy. He sought to comprehend and understand what he saw around him. He discovered that he could not reproduce reality in its traditional form in his works. It seemed to him that people are huge externally and internally, and the way they are usually depicted is not able to reflect this.
After Italy he entered the art academy de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris. His sculpture teacher was a student of Auguste Rodin, Emile Antoine Bourdelle.
Giacometti did not want to follow the traditional canons based on antiquity, and painfully searched for his own path in creativity. In Paris, he discovered modernism, cubism, surrealism, African art and the art of the peoples of Oceania. This confirmed his reluctance to create in the European tradition. He believed that the flat image that is inherent in these cultures is closest to reality. Indeed, when they look at a person, they see only one side of him and do not know what is behind him. He creates portraits like a mask, like a plane. He begins to make cubist sculptures in which human figures can be discerned.
In the end, Alberto Giacometti radically rethought the idea of sculpture and achieved his goal - he found his own visual style. The figures of his works lengthened and became incredibly thin. With such unusual proportions, the sculptor seemed to emphasize the fragility and defenselessness of living beings.
Alberto Giacometti, 1960, Photo by Kurt Bloom.
Giacometti's workshop was located in the Montparnasse district of Paris. He worked there for about 40 years. Although the premises were small, only 20 square meters, and poorly equipped, he did not want to move anywhere even when he could financially afford it. He was a fanatical workaholic and indifferent to the blessings of the world. He did not take care of his health, ate poorly, smoked and visited establishments with women of easy virtue.
Personal life
Giacometti met his future wife, 20-year-old Annette Arm, in Geneva, where he lived during World War II. They had no children. In his youth, Alberto suffered from an illness that made him childless.
Annette and brother Diego were constant and dedicated models. His brother not only posed for Alberto, but was also his best friend, support and assistant.
Alberto Giocometti and his wife Annette, 1954
Alberto Giacometti died on January 11, 1966 in the Swiss city of Chur. He did not leave a will, and his entire inheritance went entirely to his wife. Neither his brother nor the girl whom he dearly loved in the last years of his life got anything.
Alberto Giacometti with his beloved Caroline
Alberto Giacometti's works break records at auctions
Alberto Giacometti managed to gain recognition during his lifetime. However, his work began to bring in fabulous money after his death. So, in 2010, his sculpture “Walking Man” was sold at Sotheby's for $103.9 million with lightning speed - in just 8 minutes of bidding.
Alberto Giacometti, "The Walking Man"
In 2015, another sculpture, “Pointing Man,” set a new price record. It was purchased for $141.7 million at an auction at Christie's.
Alberto Giacometti, "The Pointing Man"
But not only Giacometti’s sculptures are a stunning success. In 2013, Christie’s auction house sold the painting “Diego in a Tartan Shirt,” a portrait of his younger brother, friend and assistant, painted in 1954.
Alberto Giacometti, "Diego in a Tartan Shirt"
In 2014, the bronze sculpture "Chariot" was sold for $101 million.
Alberto Giacometti, "The Chariot"
Alberto Giacometti on banknotes and in counterfeits
The commercial success of Giacometti's works haunted some envious people. So, since the 1980s, the Dutch artist Robert Dreissen began to forge his works. Counterfeits disguised as originals have been in demand for a long time.
The work of the great sculptor is tightly connected with money in another way. Since 1996, Switzerland has issued a 100-franc note featuring Alberto Giacometti and his sculptures.
100 Swiss pounds
Alberto Giacometti among his sculptures. Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Alberto Giacometti Sculpture Gallery
Alberto Giacometti, "A Man and a Woman"
Alberto Giacometti, "The Invisible Object"
Alberto Giacometti, "Cat", "Dog".
Alberto Giacometti, "The Hand"
Alberto Giacometti, "A Man and a Woman"
Alberto Giacometti, "The Tall Woman"
Alberto Giacometti, "Three Walking Men"
Alberto Giacometti, "Diego" (younger brother)
Irina Nikiforova
EXHIBITIONS
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Special issue. SWITZERLAND - RUSSIA: AT THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES
The authority of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin was largely due to its leadership in carrying out major international projects. The museum's exhibition activities are not limited to the implementation of ideas associated with many years of studying its own collection. The interest and significant efforts of its employees have always been aimed at implementing projects that illustrate pages of the history of fine art and complement the gaps in the museum exhibition. For decades now, the tradition of exhibitions of works by modernist artists and classics of avant-garde art of the 20th century has been maintained. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts was the first to introduce viewers to the works of Picasso, Modigliani, Dufy, Miro, Dali, Magritte, Mondrian, and Warhol. Forty years ago, such shows were a real cultural shock, a bold demonstration of a different artistic language against the backdrop of the “aestheticized mythology” of a totalitarian country.
Holding the exhibition “Alberto Giacometti. Sculpture, painting, graphics" can be considered a major event in the cultural life of Russia. Preparing the first show of the artist’s extensive legacy in Moscow and St. Petersburg was fraught with serious difficulties, which, despite the mutual interest of the project participants, sometimes seemed insurmountable. It was not immediately possible to bring all parties to an agreement regarding the provision of works, their transportation and exhibition. Negotiations with Swiss partners, which lasted several years, were stopped twice until finally, in the summer of 2008, an agreement was signed between the Beyeler Foundation (Basel), the Swiss Kunsthaus and the Alberto Giacometti Foundation (Zurich), two largest Russian museums - the State Hermitage and the A.S. Pushkin Museum .Pushkin. The successful implementation of the project and its undoubted success with the audience justifies the efforts invested in organizing the exhibition.
Back in the 1930s, Giacometti was accepted and favored by Parisian bohemia; in the 1940s, thanks to exhibitions at the Pierre Matisse Gallery (New York), he gained popularity in America; since the 1950s, he has become the undisputed leader of European avant-garde art. But until now, the work of the legendary artist, known throughout the world, is little known to the Russian audience.
Contemporaries saw his art as a reflection of philosophical ideas and analyzed the influence of various avant-garde movements on the development of his style. The theorist of surrealism Andre Breton considered the sculptor’s works an ideal illustration of the aesthetics of the surrealists. The French writer, philosopher and playwright Jean Paul Sartre believed that Giacometti’s work was built on the principles of phenomenology, and the images he created existed “halfway between being and nothing.” Sartre's essay on the artist, "The Striving for the Absolute" (1947), is an analysis of the existential essence of his art. However, Giacometti himself denied in his notes and essays any connection to any direction in philosophy and art.
Avoiding shocking and loud declarations, Alberto Giacometti embodied his feelings in plastic compositions. He admitted: “I mainly work for the emotions that I experience only when I am in the process of creation.” Fanatical absorption in creativity allowed him to simply not notice time, to go for days without feeling hunger or the need for rest and sleep. He devoted all his energy to searching for a way to penetrate into the essence of phenomena, trying to discover the true “lining” of existence.
Alberto received his first artistic experience in the workshop of his father, the Swiss painter Giovanni Giacometti. As a child, Alberto realized the power of his gift: “As a child, I was endlessly happy and enjoyed the thought that I could draw everything I saw.” Impressive, endowed with extraordinary abilities, Giacometti grew up in an atmosphere of creativity. In the parents' house in the town of Stampe, many interior items - furniture, carpets, chandeliers - were made by the father or made according to his designs. Alberto had at his disposal a family library with a rich collection of art publications. He purposefully engaged in drawing and painting, copying the works of old masters from illustrations in books.
Trips to Italy and acquaintance with the works of old masters - Tintoretto, Giotto, Mantegna - became a serious stage for the young artist in realizing his own creative individuality. Giacometti later recalled that then for the first time he felt the despair of a person striving for the unattainable in art - to reflect the true life hidden behind the imaginary reality of the material world.
Moving to Paris, studying at the Grand Chaumiere Academy, and visiting the workshop of the “frantic” Antoine Bourdelle were beneficial for the development of the creative talent of 20-year-old Alberto. The dynamism and internal drama of Bourdelle's plasticity turned out to be unusually close to Giacometti's still unconscious quests. The modest provincial youth was shocked by the active artistic life of the cultural capital. He painted and sculpted, borrowing much from the formal searches of contemporary artists, consistently experienced a passion for cubism and Dada, and willingly submitted to the authority of the founder of surrealism, Andre Breton, with his “Second Manifesto of Surrealism,” which has a revolutionary, political leaven. On the advice of senior colleagues, he visited the ethnographic department of the Museum of Man, where he found inspiration in the plastic forms of primitive art of Africa and Polynesia.
Giacometti, with the enthusiasm of a neophyte, overcame the “school” he had previously learned, his father’s painting system, exposing its inconsistency. In the excitement of the “converted” avant-garde artist, he committed the blasphemous by publishing the literary opus “Yesterday. Quicksand." This work, based on the facts of his autobiography, contained fantasies (sadistic pleasure obtained from mocking insects, violence against family members, the mortal sin of parricide), which revealed the artist’s subconscious aggression towards his past. By describing destructive actions, he sought to free himself in imagination from the rigid framework of generally accepted traditions. The death of his father, which soon followed, wounded and sobered Giacometti.
He greedily absorbed and talentedly interpreted everything new, putting it into artistic form, visually expressing the meaning of what he realized, but he soon lost interest if it did not correspond to his goals in art. Collaboration with a group of surrealists left a serious mark on the artist’s work, but was only a small step on the path to “high style.”
Honoré de Balzac’s novel “The Unknown Masterpiece,” read by Alberto Giacometti in the early 1940s, became a kind of program for him. Balzac clearly and simply defined the goal of the artist’s painful search: “Beauty is strict and capricious,” says the old painter Frenhofer, “it is not given so easily, you need to wait for the favorable hour, track it down and, having grabbed it, hold it tightly in order to force it to surrender. The form is Proteus, much more elusive and rich in tricks than the Proteus of the myth! Only after a long struggle can she be forced to show herself in her true form. You are all content with the first form in which she agrees to appear to you, or, at most, the second or third; This is not how winning fighters act. These inflexible artists do not allow themselves to be deceived by all sorts of twists and turns and persist until they force nature to show itself completely naked, in its true essence.”
Giacometti moved away from the empty reflection of the model's outer shell, the hulking human flesh. Cleansing the world he created from alluvial debris, the artist isolated the mortal flesh of matter and ultimately left behind the fantastic energy of the spirit. Year after year, Alberto Giacometti overcame the resistance of the material, made it sound like a tuning fork, conveying emotional tension. After the literary masterpieces of Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Beckett, Giacometti’s works are a visual embodiment of the tragic feeling of man’s abandonment by God.
Giacometti changed the perception of traditional types of fine art, mixing techniques of metal processing and painting surfaces. His revolution in art lies in the destruction of the main thing that, in fact, constituted sculpture: he “abolished volume”; deformed figures to the thinness of blades; introduced through structures as a protest against the traditional plastic language with its emphasized tangibility and weight. Almost ethereal vertical figures collect and hold any space - from museum interiors to city squares, saturating everything around them with special magnetism. They do not need slow contemplation, a smooth circular walk. Sharp, expressive sculptures dominate the space like giant, clearly drawn graphic images.
The surface of the bronze castings retains traces of Giacometti’s hands touching the clay. The texture, combined with masterful patination with complex tonal transitions from warm ocher to cool shades of green, allows us to compare the sculptures with spatial painting. Giacometti's paintings, drawings, and etchings, on the contrary, contain the sculptor's work techniques: he did not fix images with a clear contour drawing, but seemed to model objects, bodies and faces, “groping” for their shape and correct position in space by repeated repetitions of the contour. The flatness of the paper and canvas acquired volume, flowing strokes wove the image, maintaining the dynamics of “living vision”.
The artist unexpectedly found solutions to the problems he set for himself in the simplest things. Thus, a road sign for a pedestrian crossing served as an impetus for the creation of the “Walking” and “Crossing Space” series in the late 1940s, and the sculpture models, chaotically assembled in the corner of a cramped Parisian workshop, formed a composition and became a new found image (“Forest”, 1950). The artist was inspired to create the sculpture “Hand” (1947) by Balzac’s “The Unknown Masterpiece”. It literally illustrates the words of one of the characters that a cast from a living hand will remain only a piece of lifeless flesh: “The task of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. ...We must grasp the soul, the meaning, the characteristic appearance of things and beings... The hand not only forms a part of the human body - it expresses and continues the thought that must be grasped and conveyed.”
Giacometti was endowed with the dissatisfaction of a genius: “Everything that I can achieve is so insignificant in comparison with what I can see and would rather amount to failure.” These words express the true feelings of a person obsessed with art, for whom creative goals were the meaning of life.
Their achievement was made possible largely thanks to Diego Giacometti, a talented sculptor, furniture designer and interior designer, who remained in the shadow of his brilliant older brother for more than 40 years. His faithful service to Alberto, moral and financial support, assistance in the implementation of ideas and, finally, the implementation of the most important stage of work on the sculpture - the transfer of clay models into bronze castings in his own foundry - can be called a real feat.
Based on Diego's collection, the collection of the artist's widow Anette Arm and gifts from his younger brother Bruno, the Alberto Giacometti Foundation in Zurich was formed. The small exhibition, which included 60 works by Giacometti, the bulk of which were provided by the foundation, reflected all periods of the master’s work from an early self-portrait, made under the influence of his father’s painting, to his last (unrealized) project - a sculptural composition for the square in front of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York.
We're on the fourth floor of the Museum of Modern Art, and in front of us is a tiny display case containing Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti's 1948 composition "City Square." It is strange that it is made of bronze. This material is associated with heroic sculpture, and not with such small, minimalistic, sad figures. Exactly. Upon entering the museum, visitors are greeted by a grandiose figure of Balzac created by Rodin. - Made of bronze. - This is a copy of the giant statue that towers on the Boulevard Raspail in Paris. It is so big that you have to look up at it. This is a supremely heroic sculpture. There is also a whole tradition of equestrian statues. And here before us are tiny figures. - Tiny. - But there is a whole story behind them. The fact is that Giacometti was one of the dissident surrealists. Before World War II, he went to Switzerland - as far as I understand, to his mother. With friends. To protect yourself from the Nazi threat. And he remained in Switzerland until the end of the war. There he worked on sculptures. When the war ended, he returned and brought with him his works - in matchboxes. The matchboxes contained all his works created during the war. These figures were even smaller than those that are now in front of us. They are so tiny that it seems we will never be able to get close to them. That's what's funny. Despite the fact that these figures are so small and tell us so little about who exactly the sculptor depicted and what kind of physique these people are, I still see that one of them belongs to a woman. She is different from the rest. From the remaining four figures, which are clearly male. It seems interesting to me that while minimizing the individual characteristics of these figures, Giacometti left those details by which their gender can be determined. - Such as hips, chest... - Clothes. And hair. And besides, if you get acquainted with other post-war works by Giacometti, you will see that he often depicted men walking. The female figure stands motionless. Look at her legs. She resembles the ancient Greek kora - female figures whose legs are not separated from each other, and whose arms are pressed to the body. This is an archaic Greek sculpture. Right. The hands of the female figure, created by Giacometti, are also pressed to the sides, while the men are depicted in motion. These are the serious differences he makes when depicting people of different sexes. - It worries me. - Me too. It makes me wonder what he meant. She seems tied up... And I'm worried that he means something that won't make me happy. I suspect you are right. She looks tied up. Right. This creates the feeling that in the city men are mobile, but she is not. It's hard to understand why because all the figures are so aloof. - Exactly. “They all look lonely and isolated, but she seems more so.” Remember how he portrayed women before. First of all, of course, “The Woman with a Cut Throat” comes to mind. This is a figure that looks like it was raped and murdered. She is stretched out on the floor with her arms and legs outstretched. And yet there is even more violence here. Besides the fact that the woman is definitely being attacked, she is also depicted as half-insect. Namely, like a female praying mantis. Which kills the male after mating, right? This is one of the ideas that particularly interested the surrealists. Yes, she looks as if she is frozen in anticipation of the victim that the men walking past her will become. The question arises: would these figures collide with each other if something caused them to move, or would they simply pass by, each on their own path? So that they would not even collide with each other, and only their paths would cross. An interesting topic is the isolation of a person in society, right? Do you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of Seurat. I think you're right. Although the figures are depicted so sparingly that their bodies are barely outlined, we can still understand something about them. And also to see that in external space they act in isolation. The French philosopher Sartre wrote the introduction to Giacometti's first major post-war exhibition. And he said, in particular, how Giacometti’s figures express the idea of distance between people and declare that a person needs the opportunity to isolate himself from others. Sartre connects this motif in the artist’s work with the emergence of concentration camps, in one of which, as we know, the philosopher spent a short time. In the camps, people were forced to constantly come into contact with each other, and they had no personal space or opportunity to isolate themselves. Yes. The body of each of them was constantly in contact with other people’s bodies, they constantly got in each other’s way. Exactly. According to Sartre, he felt the touch of someone's hands and feet for weeks. And Giacometti recalled the need for distance between people, which means their independence from each other, allowing everyone to act in space. But, of course, what is especially significant is that the female figure appears incapable of action. This reminds me of a scene from Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus. How the main character, who was in a concentration camp - as far as I remember, Dachau - needed to go to the restroom at night, and he walked along the corridor, stepping over corpses. Sartre was not in a German concentration camp, but apparently he was in prison, albeit briefly.
The uninitiated upon hearing the name Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), will easily imagine a languid Italian afternoon, colorful painting with transparent halftones and sophisticated female figures against the backdrop of vineyards. For them, disappointment will come quickly: Giacometti was born in Switzerland and spent most of his life there.
Moreover, in his surreal, sometimes frightening manner there was no room for tenderness - compressed to the limit, spare forms are merciless in their expressiveness. The master's creativity was appreciated by those who equally acutely felt the isolation of man and his homelessness. Existential avant-garde forms retain this impression to this day.
Alberto absorbed his love for art from a young age. Growing up in a family of artists, he was drawn to creativity very early. No one was going to protect the boy in his endeavors; on the contrary, his parents were happy to see his interest in his father’s occupation. The house was literally saturated with an atmosphere of creativity, every item bore the imprint of the owners’ passion for art, and this created the most favorable environment for the development of young talent. Even later, already filled with completely different, less rosy views on life, Alberto recalled what a pleasure it was for him as a child to realize that it was possible to depict any object, to convey its features on paper. Trying to retain this feeling, he enthusiastically plunged into the study of academic drawing, copying the masterpieces of the old masters from books from his father’s extensive library.
Youth, a time of hope, bright years... A trip to Italy, designed to introduce twenty-year-old Alberto to genuine art, instead of delight brought him the first disappointments. It was there that he realized how insignificant his own efforts were in trying to depict the real world with all its hidden movements and impulses. Perhaps then, at a very tender age, his illness began - not physical, but mental, which consisted in the impossibility of getting closer to the ideal. To express what cannot be described in words - this is what his life was now dedicated to. It is unlikely that anyone else has strived for this in sculpture with such fury and such inexhaustible energy of creation. Harmony, plasticity, classical proportions - all this was doomed, discarded like unnecessary clothes, covering the image of reality with unnecessary husk. But it took many years for the plans to mature and for the eyes and hands to gain confidence.
Giacometti arrived in Paris, thundering and unbridled, with a variety of types and textures, feeling like a modest provincial. Everything he saw amazed him. After the sleepy examples of Italian art, “mothballed” for centuries, he plunged into the seething whirlpool of hundreds of new trends, each of which beckoned in its own way. Here Giacometti, a modest student at the Grand Chaumière Academy, found more than he could have expected. He enthusiastically rushed to extremes, followed every new movement and absorbed like a sponge everything that the French capital could give. And visits to the studio of the “frantic” Antoine Bourdelle completely erased academic rigor from his mind and infected him with a thirst for dynamism. He also experienced a passion for cubism, but abandoned it, like a child amused by a new toy.
Being interested in surrealists, at the same time he began to study the creativity of the peoples of Africa in ethnographic museums. It is interesting that with all the diversity of his hobbies, the sculptor later unconsciously adhered to precisely these motives. The brittle grace of ritual figurines made of ebony passed through his mature work as an invisible, but very tangible shadow.
In a sense, the Parisian environment did not influence Alberto in the best way. With all the fervor of his youth, he was in a hurry to reject the past, to raze to the ground, as most avant-garde artists thought then, everything that was outdated. Numerous declamations and manifestos lay on fertile soil, but at the same time aggravated mental turmoil. In Breton's magazine, Giacometti published his literary samples entitled “Yesterday. Quicksand." This opus - an avant-garde, harsh work, full of dark passions - can be called an intermediate result of his Parisian life. Alberto was sobered up and turned away from further experiments in this field by the sudden death of his father, but deep in his soul he already bore traces of that decay and breakdown that continued to poison his life.
What so flattered the existentialists in Giacometti’s work was, perhaps, a reflection of his soul. Crumbling, painfully fragile fragments, a form squeezed to the limit. Homelessness and cosmic loneliness - that’s what he felt, repeatedly repeating these emotions both in words and in his works. The sculptor himself considered the bronze dog (1951), sad in its realism, to be the quintessence of this restlessness.
While sad, vague forebodings squeezed his chest, Giacometti treated space more and more harshly. Not the magnificent Rubensian forms, not the celebration of the flesh, not the deceptive softness of marble figures - no! Compressed, pulled into the most expressive forms, his sculptures took on their own appearance. The horrors of war and one’s own losses, the collapse of ideals - everything resulted in spare, sharp images to the point of exhaustion.
The events that served as a kind of inspiration for and became only an intermediate stage in Giacometti’s work were a source that fed not the muses, but the inner demons. Broken, irregularly proportioned, elongated figures filled his studio.
The master sought to express a hidden thought by creating something unprecedented. Like vague dreams caught before dawn and brought into reality, they all went back to the same roots. The sculptor’s hand, in his own opinion, followed the dictates of the eye, which noticed the slightest subtleties of texture and light, conveying the image created by the imagination and enclosing it in a special space. Finally, dynamism and form came together, giving birth to its own, unique style. He was not restrained by any conventions. Figures appeared without arms, or vice versa, individual parts of the human body, endowed with their own expressiveness. Giacometti created as he saw it, because he could afford this immense creative freedom.
Gradually, the struggle for expressiveness turned into screaming. Frozen in every figure is a silent call for help. Loneliness lived and breathed in everything that came out of Giacometti’s hand, although he tried not to miss a single detail from the “outside world.”
Paradoxically, the created image did not repel the Parisian public. On the contrary, Giacometti was received with a bang by the Parisian bohemia, who saw in his detachment the embodiment of their ideas about the creator.
Jean Genet, a writer and playwright who gravitated towards chanting the asocial, forbidden and out of the ordinary, found a kindred spirit in him. Not the fame that the sculptor himself would have liked, but, nevertheless, Genet was able to comprehend some of his aspects better than another biographer. Short notes and excerpts from conversations were eventually included in a work called “The Atelier of Alberto Giacometti,” becoming another attempt to clarify the mysterious master’s view of life.
Like many creators, he craved perfection and was never completely satisfied, but at the same time he did not strive for fame. It overtook him on its own and even strengthened after death.
Among the shadows that resembled his sculptures, another one was invisibly present: Diego Giacometti, designer, sculptor and younger brother, who was always content with second number. Thanks to him, Alberto was able to create in relative peace for many years, and it was Diego who took care of creating bronze castings based on his brother’s plaster and clay sculptures. His efforts made it possible to open an exhibition that demonstrated the entire creative path of Alberto Giacometti from his earliest years.
In 1962, at the Venice Biennale, Giacometti was recognized as the best sculptor of our time. Who knows whether the recognition during his lifetime and the record prices of his works at auction today were the result of his innovative manner, or whether there is something else behind it?
Fate is a great master at playing jokes. With age, Giacometti himself more and more resembled his own sculptures; life left many imprints on his sad face. A shadow among shadows, alone in his own space - who was he? Perhaps the spirit of Alberto Giacometti still wanders invisibly among the ghostly outlines of his sculptures, hoping to find peace in their bronze curves?
