Revelations
THESE ARE DRAWINGS of shoulders, necks, and heads, each
locked into a visionary gaze. Both works demonstrate how
simple lines can be made complex by being intense. They
show us clearly the bones of drawing. Without paint and
with very little tone, each portrait is inscribed onto the page.
There is a film of Giacometti drawing. The camera watches
him at work, and with staccato flinches his hyperactive eye
moves from paper to model, while his hand stabs and thrusts
like a conductors baton. Similar movements sculpted the head
below into its page. Agitated marks make patches of tone that
cut away the space around the character. Flesh is built and
personality carved simultaneously.
Opposite, Bellini gently conjures the features of his saint
with soft marks that tease his presence out of shadows into the
light. We are brought intimately close to this man gazing up to
heaven; close enough to touch his hair and feel his breath.
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI
Swiss sculptor; painter draftsman, and
poet After studying in Geneva and Italy,
Giacometti settled in Paris. He is best
known for his bronze sculptures of
human form, which are characteristically
elongated. They confuse our perception
of scale by being intimately fragile and
at the same time far removed, as if
seen from a distance.Energy This is a portrait of a
woman drawn with black crayon
on a plain page of a book Lines
search for the essence of form,
cutting and carving the paper
with matted and spiraling
restless energy.Speed Giacometti probably
began with an oval shape placed
in relation to the proportion of
the page. Then, with speed and
urgency, he drew over the whole
image at once.Portrait de Marie-Laure de Noailles
c. 1948
77 / 8 x 6 in (200 x 150 mm)
ALBERTO GIACOMETTIPORTRAITURE