Page 57 - Studio International - September 1965

perspective was obtained usually by seeing the flirtations with Surrealism. having that final decision
silhouette of a standing figure at the end of the in the appearance that would seem to deny the artist's
corridor against the white light of the window. A predilection for working on pieces over the years.
strange intimacy occurred when one saw Mr. Ernst At the Tate the earliest artifact that was to set the
Beyeler. the gallery director. walk almost in step and theme for the next thirty years is Woman walking, a
matched in height with Homme qui marche II of 1960. headless Cycladic plaster figure from the collection of
At the Tate the spacious area of the Sculpture Hall Miss Erica Brausen. Hereafter the men are walking
emphasises the monumentality rather than the isolation and the women stand waiting, in a variety and differ­
of the figures. Those placed with telling restraint in this ence that is incredible for all their apparent sameness.
gallery carried with them the feeling of dissociation But the differences are at close range. in the long view
from contemporary life that all good sculpture has. The we are in the presence of an army of matchstick
sequence in time tells the story of Giacometti's soldiers. always upright. never at ease. The endless
development in a revealing way that is not unnaturally dialogue of the artist with life becomes for Giacometti
the story of the artist's life. The small heads in bronze the creation of metaphors for mankind. heroic in its
of the artist's father and mother of 1927 show already general stance. human in its features.
the ability to pare away the non-contributory details In his portraits in bronze and oils. notably of brother
leaving in the essentials of the features the attributes of Diego and his wife Annette. it is as if the spirit of their
character that are personal to the sitter. Purely formal personalities inflates the limp envelopes that cover the
considerations come out earliest 1n Spoon-woman of skeleton of the sculptures. though Diego-to be sure­
1926 in which a hollowed frontal image allies itself to his model over the years. has become the stand-in for
Brancusi's conceptions. Cubist Composition of 1 927 humanity. In the drawings there is this same penetra­
shows a young man's experimental assembly of tion of space that is a keynote of Giacometti's work.
squared masses. They recur in the Cube and Cubist Not toys, not ornaments. Giacometti's sculptures
Head of 1934 35 and in the years between. in the have their own life as the images of the Musee de
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