Lot Essay
The majority of Alberto Giacometti's portraits are directly or indirectly portraits of his brother Diego. "He posed for me over a long period of time," Giacometti recalled, "and more often than anyone else... So when I draw or sculpt or paint a head from memory, it always turns out to be more or less Diego's because it's Diego's head I've done most often from life." (exh. cat., Twentieth Century Modern Masters, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1989, p. 261) Giacometti executed at least four paintings of Diego in the studio between 1949 and 1950, one of which is now in the Tate Gallery in London.
The present portrait of Diego is characteristic of Giacometti's work from this period, composed of a mass of short, non-representational lines that swiftly delineate each feature. These lines give the painting a strong three-dimensional presence, measuring out the space between the artist and the subject. As Valerie Fletcher noted in the catalogue of the 1988 exhibition of Giacometti's work at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
More than any other pictorial component, line defines and dominates Giacometti's post-war style... Influenced in part by the many
drawings he did during the 1940's, he used a thin brush like a
pencil to draw lines repeatedly over, inside and around the forms,
defining without actually describing them, creating and simultaneously annihilating solid mass on the surface of the flat
canvas... The use of multiple, vibrating contours that do not
harden into firmly defined forms owes a strong debt to the late
works of Cézanne, but Giacometti pushed the technique to a more
expressionist end. The multiplicity of lines creates a sensation
of speed, urgency and instability. (exh. cat., Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 1988, p. 48)
As in many of Giacometti's portraits, the figure's head in Diego assis dans l'atelier forms the perspectival focus of the painting, his eyes staring straight out at the viewer. Giacometti developed this emphasis upon the gaze early in his career, and focused almost obsessively upon it in late works like Annette VIII, lot 27 in the present sale. Posed close to the picture plane, Diego's torso looks almost tangible, while his disproportionately small head seems further away -- an anatomical distortion which Fletcher has likened to the way that an object appears to recede when stared at intensely. The psychological effect of Diego's slightly shrunken head is to imply the distance which separates him from the viewer, creating in the painting a subtle yet unmistakable sense of loneliness and alienation. This feeling is heightened by the painted frame that surrounds the figure in Diego assis dans l'atelier, which Fletcher explains as follows:
Recalling the Renaissance definition of a painting as a window on
the world, this framing device opens up and encloses an imaginary
three-dimensional reality. By isolating the figure in a remote and uncertain environment, Giacometti marks off the figure's space as
distinct from our reality. When asked why he used these framing
outlines, he replied: "Because I do not determine the true space of the figure until after it is finished. And with the vague intention of reducing the canvas, I try to fictionalize my painting...and also because my figures need a sort of no man's land." (Ibid., pp.
47-48)
Diego is shown seated in Giacometti's studio in the present work, the multitude of small sculptures just barely visible behind him testimony to the creative productivity of this period in the artist's career. Giacometti executed several other pictures of his studio around this time, including a series depicting sculptures and still life objects grouped on his worktable. Commenting upon how it felt to draw his own sculptures, Giacometti concluded, "Sometimes I'm surprised I was so good, and sometimes that I missed the mark so far. But of course when drawing them one sees them in an entirely different way, one sees their mood rather than their form." (H. Lust, Giacometti: The Complete Graphics and Fifteen Drawings, New York, 1970, p. 74)
The present portrait of Diego is characteristic of Giacometti's work from this period, composed of a mass of short, non-representational lines that swiftly delineate each feature. These lines give the painting a strong three-dimensional presence, measuring out the space between the artist and the subject. As Valerie Fletcher noted in the catalogue of the 1988 exhibition of Giacometti's work at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
More than any other pictorial component, line defines and dominates Giacometti's post-war style... Influenced in part by the many
drawings he did during the 1940's, he used a thin brush like a
pencil to draw lines repeatedly over, inside and around the forms,
defining without actually describing them, creating and simultaneously annihilating solid mass on the surface of the flat
canvas... The use of multiple, vibrating contours that do not
harden into firmly defined forms owes a strong debt to the late
works of Cézanne, but Giacometti pushed the technique to a more
expressionist end. The multiplicity of lines creates a sensation
of speed, urgency and instability. (exh. cat., Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 1988, p. 48)
As in many of Giacometti's portraits, the figure's head in Diego assis dans l'atelier forms the perspectival focus of the painting, his eyes staring straight out at the viewer. Giacometti developed this emphasis upon the gaze early in his career, and focused almost obsessively upon it in late works like Annette VIII, lot 27 in the present sale. Posed close to the picture plane, Diego's torso looks almost tangible, while his disproportionately small head seems further away -- an anatomical distortion which Fletcher has likened to the way that an object appears to recede when stared at intensely. The psychological effect of Diego's slightly shrunken head is to imply the distance which separates him from the viewer, creating in the painting a subtle yet unmistakable sense of loneliness and alienation. This feeling is heightened by the painted frame that surrounds the figure in Diego assis dans l'atelier, which Fletcher explains as follows:
Recalling the Renaissance definition of a painting as a window on
the world, this framing device opens up and encloses an imaginary
three-dimensional reality. By isolating the figure in a remote and uncertain environment, Giacometti marks off the figure's space as
distinct from our reality. When asked why he used these framing
outlines, he replied: "Because I do not determine the true space of the figure until after it is finished. And with the vague intention of reducing the canvas, I try to fictionalize my painting...and also because my figures need a sort of no man's land." (Ibid., pp.
47-48)
Diego is shown seated in Giacometti's studio in the present work, the multitude of small sculptures just barely visible behind him testimony to the creative productivity of this period in the artist's career. Giacometti executed several other pictures of his studio around this time, including a series depicting sculptures and still life objects grouped on his worktable. Commenting upon how it felt to draw his own sculptures, Giacometti concluded, "Sometimes I'm surprised I was so good, and sometimes that I missed the mark so far. But of course when drawing them one sees them in an entirely different way, one sees their mood rather than their form." (H. Lust, Giacometti: The Complete Graphics and Fifteen Drawings, New York, 1970, p. 74)