Giacometti

When looking at Giacometti’s work you must consider:

        1)  His allegiance to the object.

        2)  The objects relationship to the space surrounding it.

        3)  His use of line to generate activity.

“Portrait of Annette” 1954 Alberto Giacometti

               

 

The relationship between line as energy and line as structure saturate the object (when I refer to line as energy I mean a line that suggests movement while a structure line bears weight). These lines, frantic and wrapping, grant activity to a static subject. Line as a moving pulse creates form that condenses to a midline rushing the eye upward to a dense network of overlapping lines. This network represents both the psychological weight of the gaze (life itself) and the literal weight of a cheek, a breast, a pelvis. This object exists only in energy and form, both of which gather at the implied head. Marks when repeated at the right frequency produce a layer that mimics skin. This imitation helps us believe this stylized representation has solidity. Something made truer due to the conflict the object has with the surrounding emptiness. Built in this emptiness the picture plane remains constant dictating our perception of space. Hints and traces pull the eye from ambiguous shapes back to the weighted figure. Once the eye rediscovers the figure and undoubtedly matches the gaze yet again we are forced to trace the artist’s cyclical marks.