Exclusion wall by the hands of Alberto Giacometti. Alberto Giacometti

He made art without abstruse and deafening slogans, without shockingness or declarations.

He is called one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century, and Alberto Giacometti worked without noticing time, forgetting about sleep and food. He liked to repeat that he was only at the beginning of the path to understanding his model, that he did not have a single finished work...

The artist's son

He was almost the same age as the 20th century and was born in 1901 in the town of Stampe, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. Alberto Giacometti was the son of a famous post-impressionist artist and from childhood grew up in an atmosphere of interest in fine art, and an interest free from the framework of adherence to a particular movement or style. the artist carried it through his entire life.

But at first he copies his father’s paintings and works in his manner and in the style of Fauvism. In sculpture, he began by working in an academic manner. After studying in the sculpture class of the Geneva School of Fine Arts, he commits and then moves to France. Alberto Giacometti, whose biography began in Switzerland, worked almost his entire life in the workshop, leaving only for the summer to visit his relatives.

Choosing a specialty

In 1922, he began studying with the sculptor Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929), a student of the great Rodin, and studied with him intermittently for 5 years. Since 1925, drawing and painting have become auxiliary genres for Alberto Giacometti, and sculpture will be his main artistic specialty from now on.

Paris in the first decades of the 20th century is the center of artistic life in the world. In the communication between young leaders of new trends in fine art, literature, and philosophy, new styles and ideas were honed, their interaction and mutual influence took place. Alberto Giacometti could not avoid this either. The sculptures of that time bear clear traces of the formalist explorations of Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) and, of course, the Cubists. Such, for example, is “Torso” (1925).

Influence of primitive art

In search of the undistorted essence of what was depicted, the avant-garde artists of the Parisian school paid attention to the art of peoples not spoiled by civilization. Exhibitions of ritual masks and totemic idols from Africa, Oceania and South America, masterpieces of archaeological finds of the ancient Egyptian era - all this was studied with constant interest. Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani - artists of various movements used similar motifs in painting and sculpture.

“The Couple”, “The Spoon Woman” (1926) are some of the most expressive works of that period by Alberto Giacometti. The combination of totemic radical simplification of form, the expression of masculine and feminine principles in the form of symbols and silhouettes is extremely concentrated here. The artist will continue to use these finds in the future, but a clear frontal arrangement (as in these sculptures) is rare in Giacometti.

Variety of styles

Never locking himself into a single style, he easily changed his style, especially at the initial stage. Alberto Giacometti, whose biography is a constant and intense work, eventually developed his own special, unique and recognizable type of sculptural images - elongated, fragile figures with a pulsating surface, bewitching the space around them.

And at first there were plates simplified to minimalism, in which the features of the models were non-drastic changes in the relief: “Head” (1931), “Weasel” (1932). There was a period when the surrealists considered him their undoubted follower. “Woman with a Cut Throat” (1932): a surprisingly strong impression of violence is achieved by dissecting volume on a plane, when individual biomorphic elements seem to be a torn body that has undergone monstrous metamorphoses. “Surreal Table” (1933) - a furniture element - a composition of self-sufficient elements, combined to create a new story.

The famous “Suspended Ball” (1931) is an amazing materialization of sensations that are individual for each viewer: one dreams of erotic experiences, while another feels a painful cut.

But the surreal period also became passing. The study of the diversity of life passing around at a given moment in time, and man at this time, became the main theme for the artist.

Time dictating topics

Switzerland is a neutral country, but no one managed to stay away from the world war tragedy. The days were still filled with labor, but few large-scale and significant works were created. It is no coincidence that painting and drawing again began to occupy more space in the work of Alberto Giacometti. The sculptures literally shrank - the human figures fit into a matchbox. Studying the interaction of volume and space, time and mass, the artist experiments with dimensions.

These studies formed the basis for the works that brought the master worldwide recognition immediately after the war. Thus, the most expensive sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, “The Pointing Man,” was created in 1947. Cast in bronze, 180 cm high, this work by the master was sold in the spring of 2015 at Christie's auction for $141.285 million.

Confession

The main place at the exhibitions of 1948 in New York and 1950 in Paris was given to sculpture, expressing the fragility and defenselessness of man in a world of violence, his inability to resist the inexorable flow of time. Together with the amazing drawings and paintings of Alberto Giacometti, the sculptures formed exhibitions that invariably enjoyed enormous success.

The busts and figures that he non-stop sculpted from his regular models - his brother Diego and his wife Annette - do not have momentary materiality and real volume, they seem to be excluded from space, endowed with a meaning for which the present moment is unimportant.

Preserving the visual expression of the author's energy in the form of a bubbling texture created by the innumerable touches of the sculptor's fingers, they fascinate with a power similar to the energy of a drawn bow. This is almost literally symbolized by the same “Pointing Man” by Alberto Giacometti. A photo of this sculpture from a certain angle shows an archer who will release an inexorable arrow in a second.

Expressionism in painting

Giacometti's drawings and paintings are not a preparatory stage for future volumetric works, although the sculptor's gaze is felt in them. A portrait or figure is modeled with many contours. Particularly characteristic of Giacometti is the use of two contrasting color lines. The design appears as a complex grid structure with an almost three-dimensional effect, with each line being precise and appropriate.

Giacometti's pictorial works and his sculptures are similar not only to the skillful use of volume, not only to the characteristic elongation of the depicted figures and faces, but also to the unprecedented energy, the emotions that radiate from every dent on the surface of the sculpture, every stroke of the drawing and every painterly stroke. It is no coincidence that the artist sometimes painted his sculptures.

Animal painter

Cynologists like to argue about his “Dog” (1951), determining its breed, because, despite its unusual proportions, it looks surprisingly naturalistic. And some experts are confident in the illustrative accuracy of the sculpture made by Alberto Giacometti. They offer a photo of an Afghan hound dog as absolute proof.

When the artist himself was asked about this, he replied that “Dog,” as well as “Cat” and even “Spider,” are just his self-portraits.

The main thing is the person

His subjects, especially of the late period, are varied: he painted still lifes, landscapes, and animals. But there was one main theme, and it was the painting and sculpture of Alberto Giacometti that served it. “The Pointing Man”, “The Walking Man” (1960), “The Man Crossing the Square” (1947), “The Man Who Walks in the Rain” (1949)... His statues expressed human vulnerability, stood peering into the current time, they made their way through narrow cracks of different dimensions, piercing space with needles.

He himself attracted people, he himself was expressive and beautiful - Alberto Giacometti. Photographs captured his majestic face, his wise, all-understanding look, films tell about the good power that radiated from him and did not fade away until the very end of his journey.

Reason to take a closer look

His works are among the most valuable in material terms. “Pointing Man” by Alberto Giacometti, a photo of which flooded the Internet in the spring of 2015, like “Diego’s Big Head” (1954) and “Walking Man” in 2010, set a record for the price at auction

Among other things, this is another reason to take a closer look at his creations in order to once again be surprised at what art can be like, what a person can be like.

“...When you look at art made by other people, you see only what you should see in it,” is a statement by the author of unusual sculptures, Alberto Giacometti. What should we see in his works? The sad, elongated silhouettes of people seem to have stepped out of the pages of Camus’s works, wandering lonely through an empty world. They are more like aliens, sometimes they do not have a specific appearance.

Biography

Alberto Giacometti was born in 1901 in the small village of Stampa on the border of Switzerland and Italy. His father is a famous post-impressionist artist, his father's brother Augusto was also an artist. The future genius absorbed a love for fine art from a young age. The family was glad that the son was showing interest in his father’s occupation. And the young talent was happy about his discovery that every object can be depicted on paper. He liked to copy his father’s work and tried to work in his manner himself. Alberto had no adherence to a particular style; this was evident throughout his life.

Alberto Giacometti studied sculpture at the School of Arts and Crafts in Geneva. In 1920, his father took the young man to Italy for the XIV Biennale in Venice. Here Alberto discovers the great masters: Giotto, Cimabue. He visits museums, churches, and wanders through the ruins of Pompeii. Gets acquainted with the mosaics of San Marco, sees the walls of the Colosseum. Here comes the formation of Giacometti's personality.

In Paris

In 1922, together with his younger brother Diego Alberto, he went to Paris, where he would spend his whole life. The brothers earned their living by making candlesticks, vases, clocks and even furniture. Over time, critics will be faced with a dilemma: to consider these things as household items or works of art.

Alberto's first teacher was the Russian sculptor Alexander Archipenko, who gave the student an understanding of what emptiness is in sculpture and that it also gives form. Next three years, Giacometti, studying in the courses of Antoine Bourdelle, found more than expected. He is infected with a thirst for dynamism. Gradually, drawing and painting fade into the background; the main specialty chosen for life will be sculpting.

African art

1925 - the time of passion for African art. Alberto Giacometti's sculptures based on African motifs are perfect and, as the author believed, more realistic than Roman busts. The avant-gardists of the Parisian school believed that it was necessary to pay attention to the real folk art of countries not spoiled by civilization, such as the countries of Africa and Oceania.

Over the course of several years, Alberto's attention was also drawn to the study of the art of these countries, which prompted him to create the world-famous subtle figures, which in the French avant-garde are defined as a feeling of individual isolation. His constant quest to develop his own unique and recognizable type of sculpture is reflected in elongated and fragile figures. The attempts in this genre turned out to be successful.

"The Spoon Woman" is Giacometti's first work. The basis of the sculpture was a spoon participating in the ceremonies of an African tribe. The spoon is the womb of a woman, that is, in this tribe it is made in the form of a woman. Giacometti, while executing the sculpture, gives it his own meaning - “Woman in the shape of a spoon.”

Variety of styles

The steps that Alberto took to his peak, his style, were from cubism and abstraction to surrealism. It was typical for him to start studying the subject. After receiving the result, he was no longer interested in him. Alberto wrote in his diary: “As soon as I understood the mechanism of abstract composition, it no longer interested me.” Surrealism fascinated Giacometti. He creates prefabricated structures that move in space. “Trace Time” is a moving but silent surreal object.

Being a versatile person, Alberto never locked himself into one style. He was not a sculptor who painted occasionally. He was both. His drawings and sketches are not sketches. This is a completely independent genre of Alberto Giacometti. If these are canvases, then they are designed in black and gray tones and are very reminiscent of his sculptures, the same fragile necks and elongated figures. No matter how Giacometti tried to introduce other colors into the canvases, it did not work. During the work, the colors of the palette seemed to be eliminated by themselves, leaving only gray.

New works and new topics

In 1927, the sculptor's work was exhibited at the Tuileries Salon. And the first exhibition in Giacometti’s life took place in 1932, which included such works as “The Suspended Ball” (1931). She, like no other, caused the materialization of sensations. This aggressive, erotic work made a strong impression on Salvador Dali. There were other works built around ribbed forms. For example, “Man and Woman” (1927), where rounded (feminine) forms interact with rectangular forms, symbolizing the masculine principle in this composition.

A surrealist period also passed in Giacometti’s work. He became interested in topics related to what is currently happening in a person’s life.

Work during the war

The departure to Geneva was associated with the outbreak of war and the occupation of France. Giacometti remained in Switzerland until the end. Alberto Giacometti's workshop became both his home and his workplace for many years. Few large-scale sculptural works were done during this period.

He is more interested in drawing and painting. But he doesn’t forget about sculpture. He begins experiments with dimensions, studying the interaction of volume and space. Some of his works were reduced to the size of a matchbox. But there were also those that years later were sold at auction for incredible amounts of money. Such works include the sculpture “Pointing Man” by Alberto Giacometti. Cast in bronze, 1.8 meters high, it was sold for $141.285 million at Christie's auction in 2015.

Fame

Alberto's return to Paris in 1945 literally from the first days included him in the bustling life of the capital. He takes part in exhibitions. Articles about the work of the talented sculptor, written by his friends Genet and Sartre, brought Giacometti fame. Participating in exhibitions in New York and Paris, he presented to the public a sculpture expressing an unprotected person in a world dominated by violence and the impossibility of resisting this passage of time.

The era in which Alberto Giacometti creates his work is characterized by a general feeling of uncertainty, but he accurately captures the spirit of the time and says that his goal is to capture the man of our time. Figures and busts of his loved ones, brother and wife, are constantly being improved and sharpened. They seem to be excluded from space, but endowed with a meaning understandable to the author. He tries to convey this meaning to the viewer. The bubbling texture of the sculpting retains the energy of the sculptor, the energy of a drawn bow. So, if you look at his “Pointing Man” from a certain angle, you can see the symbolism of his outstretched arm - this is an archer ready to shoot an arrow.

A little about painting

Along with amazing sculptures, graphics and paintings by Alberto Giacometti are popular at exhibitions. Drawings and paintings were not something like sketches for sculptures. These were integral works, although the sculptor’s view was visible in these works. Every line of the drawing was precise and appropriate. Giacometti's paintings, drawings and sculptures are united by the author's unprecedented energy; his works are recognizable.

As in sculpture, his paintings feature people close to him: his wife Annette and brother Diego. In 1954, one of the best portraits, “Diego in a plaid shirt (Diego en chemise écossaise),” was painted. In it, the artist changed his monochrome gray color. It uses shades of red in the face, hands and checkered shirt. To create the illusion of three-dimensional space, the painting is placed in another frame, which looks advantageous.

Man is the main theme of creativity

The late period of Giacometti's work is characterized by a variety of subjects. These are paintings, still lifes, sculptures. But the theme of man ran through his work as a red thread. These are world-famous masterpieces made by the sculptor. "Man Crossing a Square" (1947), about which Giacometti says that the figure can be like strokes, with endlessly elongated silhouettes. The main thing is that it should be read “head-on”.

"The Man Who Walks in the Rain" (1949) energetically pushes the surrounding space, making his way. All this is readable in a thin silhouette. Or in his “Walking Man” Alberto Giacometti gives a symbolic image of a man frozen in mid-step, but ready to move on, to move towards his goal. All his human statues expressed vulnerability, peering into the current time, seeking protection for their naked soul.

Living mostly in Paris, Giacometti constantly visited his home, in the town of Bergel in the mountains of Baunburden. But no matter where he was, he never stopped working. His younger brother Bruno said that Alberto often visited him. And every time before his arrival, Bruno’s wife began to hide the Giacometti figurines placed around the apartment. She was afraid that, having seen the sculptures, Alberto would take out his famous chisel and begin to finish and improve them, because he believed that there were no ready-made works of art.

Giacometti's legacy

Sculptor, painter, draftsman, engraver - all in one person. His works are eccentric and recognizable. This is art for all times. So, at least, they think in the Zurich Museum, where the bulk of Giacometti’s legacy is located. Already during his lifetime he managed to achieve noticeable success. His first exhibition took place in 1962 at the Kunsthaus Museum in Zurich.

Today his figures adorn the exhibitions of leading museums around the world. And one of them, the most significant sculpture “The Walking Man” by Alberto Giacometti, is immortalized on the 100 Swiss francs banknote, and on the other side is a portrait of the artist himself.

Currently, the works of the great sculptor are considered the most valuable not only for their content - their price at auction is also high. “The Pointing Man” by Alberto Giacometti, like “Diego’s Big Head” (1954), and “The Walking Man” in 2010, set records for value at auction.

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 his works with him - 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 one can determine their gender. - 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.

In France, he became interested in the problem of the relationship between mass and space in sculpture, which he tried to solve by creating the so-called “cage sculptures”.

Giacometti's early works were made in a realistic manner, but later he switched to designs like volumetric collages, and was also influenced by surrealism And cubism. For several years he studied the art of Ancient Greece, Africa, Oceania and ancient America, which subsequently pushed him to create the world-famous thin figures expressing the sense of individual isolation characteristic of the French avant-garde. In 1927, the sculptor's works were presented at the Tuileries Salon, and five years later his first personal exhibition took place. With the beginning of the occupation of France, Giacometti went to Geneva and was forced to remain in Switzerland until the end of the war.

In 1945, Giacometti returned to Paris and actively became involved in the artistic life of the French capital. Participation in group exhibitions, personal retrospectives, as well as friendship with and Jean Genet, which devoted several articles to his work, brought the sculptor wide fame in Europe. In the post-war period, a stable style of the master emerged, which determined his place in the art of the 20th century - in highly elongated figures that literally cut through space, Giacometti found an exact solution to the problem of dematerialization of an object with a shift in emphasis to emptiness. Towards the end of his life, Giacometti preferred painting.

"Evening Moscow" brings to your attention a selection of the most famous works of one of the main sculptors of the 20th century.

"Composition (Man and Woman)" (1927)

Many of Giacometti's cubist compositions are built around ribbed forms, as if welded from parallel strips. This sculpture evokes associations either with parts of industrial structures of unknown purpose, or with musical instruments. Round (feminine) forms are in a state of continuous interaction with rectangles, symbolizing the masculine principle - together they form something like a perpetual motion machine.

"Hanging Ball" (1931)

In this famous surrealist design, a spherical volume with a recess, swinging on a thread, touches the crescent shape, causing a sharp tactile sensation in the audience. A rather aggressive work, full of pure eroticism, made a strong impression on Andre Breton And .