Irony Mastered and Unmastered

Abstract

Giacometti destroys his statues, dozens of them. His aim is simple: he means to sculpt the human being in a manner sculpture has been as yet unable to achieve. Upon what techniques does he draw? There is the influence of Egyptian art which, according to Schaefer-an authority with whose work Giacometti was familiar-attempts to depict the essence of a person rather than their real appearance.1 Schaefer attacked the Greek discovery of the artistic representation of perspective because it breaks with the way in which we remember images-frontally or as in profile. Giacometti says enthusiastically: ‘no other sculptures as closely resemble real people as Egyptian sculpture’; but what do they resemble? Not simply the sculptor’s models.2 True, the portraits of Diego, Giacometti’s brother, are noticeably portraits of this and not another individual. But perhaps Giacometti has another kind of resemblance in mind.