Volume 36, Number 8 · May 18, 1989
Giacometti's Code
By Avigdor Arikha
Modernist, and not quite. Traditionalist, and not quite. Giacometti's sculpture is neither realist nor abstract. Its surfaces look old, as if the pieces had been excavated. His painting is nearly colorless; his drawing, a web of hesitations. Alberto Giacometti was paradoxical. Much has been said and written about his work and about his life[1] ; but now the aura surrounding his friendships with Sartre and Genet has dimmed and it is the work itself that commands attention. He was among the first to break away from the modernist dogma that art must respond essentially to other art, and to restore the connection of art and nature. And yet he was skeptical about the possibility of such a renewal. He considered abstraction an impasse for the artist, because he was unable to make connections with nature, while representational painting was beyond revival.
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