Alberto Giacometti: biography and sculpture

He was a rare figure: among the most avant-garde artists of Paris, he was engaged in art without abstruse and deafening slogans, without shocking and declarations. He is called one of the greatest sculptors of the XX century, and Alberto Giacometti worked, not noticing the time, forgetting about sleep and food. He liked to repeat that only at the beginning of the road to understanding his model, that he does not have any ready-made work ...

Son of the artist

He was almost the same age of the XX century and was born in 1901 in the town of Stamp, 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 the fine arts, with an interest free from the framework of adherence to a certain trend or style. This feeling the artist carried through his whole life.

But at first he copies his father's picturesque works and works in his manner and in the style of Fauvism. In sculpture, he began with work in an academic manner. After studying in the sculpture class of the Geneva School of Fine Arts, he travels through Italy, and then moves to France. Alberto Giacometti, whose biography began in Switzerland, almost all his life worked in a workshop in Montparnasse in Paris, leaving only for the summer time to his relatives.

Choose a specialty

Since 1922, he begins training with the sculptor Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929), a disciple of the great Rodin and has been intermittently engaged with him for 5 years. Since 1925, drawing and painting have become for Alberto Giacometti auxiliary genres, and the main artistic specialty for him will henceforth be sculpting.

Paris of the first decades of the 20th century is the center of the artistic life of the world. In the communication of the young leaders of the new trends of fine art, literature, philosophy, the new styles and ideas were honed, their interaction and mutual influence. Alberto Giacometti could not avoid it. The sculptures of that time bear clear traces of the formalistic research of Constantine Brancusi (1876-1957) and, of course, the Cubists. Such, for example, "Torso" (1925).

The influence of primitive art

In search of the undistorted essence of the portrayed avant-garde artists of the Paris school drew 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 different directions used similar motifs in painting and sculpture.

"The Couple", "The Woman-Spoon" (1926) - one of the most expressive things of that period in Alberto Giacometti. The combination of totemic radical simplification of form, the expression of the male and female elements in the form of symbols, silhouettes here is extremely concentrated. These findings the artist will use in the future, but unequivocally frontal arrangement (as in these sculptures) is found rarely in Giacometti.

Variety of styles

Never locking himself up in some unambiguous style, he easily changed the manner, especially at the initial stage. Alberto Giacometti, whose biography - a constant and intense work, eventually developed his special, unique and recognizable type of sculptural images - elongated, fragile, with a pulsating surface of the figure, fascinating the space around him.

And at first there were simplified to minimal plates, in which the signs of models were non-cardinal changes in the relief: "Head" (1931), "Laska" (1932). There was a period when the surrealists considered him an undoubted adherent. "Woman with a cut throat" (1932): a surprisingly strong impression of violence is achieved by dissecting the volume on the plane, when individual biomorphic elements appear to be torn by a body that has undergone monstrous metamorphosis. "Surrealistic table" (1933) - furniture element - a composition of self-sufficient elements for the purpose of creating a new story.

The famous "Suspended Ball" (1931) is an amazing materialization of sensations, individual for each viewer: one dreams erotic experiences, and the other feels a painful cut.

But the surreal period has also become a passing period. The study of the diversity of life going around at a given time, and the person at this time became the main theme for the artist.

Time dictating the topic

Switzerland is a neutral country, but nobody could stay away from the world military tragedy. The days were still filled with labor, but there were not many large-scale and significant works created. It is no accident that painting and drawing again took up more space in the work of Alberto Giacometti. Sculptures literally diminished - human figures fit into a matchbox. Studying the interaction of volume and space, time and mass, the artist experiments with the dimensions.

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

Confession

The main place at the exhibitions in 1948 in New York and 1950 in Paris was devoted to sculpture, which expressed the fragility and defenselessness of man in the world of violence, the inability to resist the inexorable passage of time. Along with amazing drawings and paintings by Alberto Giacometti, the sculptures were exhibitions, which invariably enjoyed tremendous success.

Busts and figures, which he constantly sculpted from his constant models - his brother Diego and Annette's wives - do not have instant materiality and real volume, they seem to be turned off from space, endowed with meaning for which the moment does not matter.

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 by the force, similar to the energy of a stretched bow. It almost literally symbolizes the same "Pointing Man" Alberto Giacometti. A photo of this sculpture from a certain angle is an archer who will release an inexorable arrow in a second.

Expressionism in painting

Drawings and paintings Giacometti - this is not a preparatory stage for future voluminous work, although they feel the look of the sculptor. A portrait or a figure is modeled by a set of contours. Particularly characteristic of Giacometti is the use of two color contrasting lines. The figure looks like a complex mesh structure that has almost a three-dimensional effect, with each line being accurate and relevant.

Picturesque works of Giacometti and his sculpture relate not only the skilful use of volume, not only the characteristic elongation of the figures and faces depicted, but also that unseen energy, those emotions that emit every dent on the surface of the sculpture, every stroke of the drawing and every painting stroke. It is no accident that the artist sometimes painted his sculptures.

Animal painter

Near his "Dogs" (1951), lovers of cynologists like to argue, determining her breed, because, despite the unusual proportions, she looks amazingly naturalistic. And some experts are sure of the illustrative accuracy of Alberto Giacometti's sculpture. Photo of a dog of the breed Afghan hound is offered by them as absolute proof.

When asked about this artist, he replied that the "Dog", as well as the "Cat" and even "Spider" - it's just his self-portraits.

The main thing is a person

His subjects, especially the late period, are diverse: he painted still lifes, landscapes, animals. But the main theme was one, it was she who was the painting and sculpture of Alberto Giacometti. "The Pointing Man," "The Walking Man" (1960), "The Man Crossing the Square" (1947), "The Man Who Is Walking in the Rain" (1949) ... His statues expressed human vulnerability, stood peering at the current time, They made their way through narrow slots of different dimensions, pierced the needles with needles.

He attracted people, he was expressive and handsome - Alberto Giacometti. Photos captured his majestic face, his wise, all-knowing look, films tell of the good power radiated by him and not extinguished until the very end of his journey.

Reason for a close look

His works are one of the most valued in material terms. The "pointing man" Alberto Giacometti, a photo with whom the Internet was flooded in the spring of 2015, like the "Big Head of Diego", (1954) and "The Walking Man" in 2010, set a record for the cost of bidding for works of art.

Among other things, this is an extra reason to look more attentively at his creations, to once again be surprised at what kind of art, what a man is.