For those of us who are not artists, imagine trying to narrow the gap between viewing art and creating it. Is it even possible?
Or are there just too many variables involved [technical and otherwise] to create a narrative that is both lucid and comprehensive?
Some look at particular works of art, figure a kid could do it, and scoff at the idea that it is even art at all. And what of those who haul a urinal into a museum and exhibit that as art?
Are there creations that truly are art? Then this: Are there ways in which to decide if any particular creation is among the “great works” of art?
Imagine then trying to get into the mind of an artist who goes about the business of creating a work of art. Why choose this and not that?
Here we have the story [a more or less true story] of the American critic [and art-lover] James Lord choosing to pose for a portrait. A portrait painted by the artist Alberto Giacometti. Then the exchange between them. The parts in particular that revolve around “the beauty, frustration, profundity and sometimes chaos of the artistic process”.
And, after all, in this world what must one possess in order to be described as an “artistic genius”? Is this actually something that can be understood? And then explained to those of us who look at art…but not much more beyond?
Giacometti’s life is portrayed exactly as you would imagine the life of the artist. And, so, any up and coming artists today now know how to model their own life. So, is this but one more rendition of art imitating life imitating art imitating life.
Bottom line [mine]: I still don’t get it. That gap between what the artists think that they are after in their work and what I imagine that actually means to them. I lack the technical skills to judge, but I suspect it goes beyond that: an artistic “sensibility” I was simply never able to acquire.
In other words, when they talk about their art it all still goes over my head.
The closest someone like me can get to it are those moments when I’m grappling to find just the right words to express what I think I mean about what I think I feel about something.
IMDb
[b]Alberto Giacometti was born in Borgonovo, now part of the Switzerland municipality of Bregaglia, near the Italian border. He was a descendant of Protestant refugees escaping the inquisition. His brothers Diego and Bruno would go on to become artists as well. “Pointing Man” sold for $126 million, $141.3 million with fees, in Christie’s May 11, 2015 Looking Forward to the Past sale in New York, a record for a sculpture at auction. The work had been in the same private collection for 45 years.
The filmmakers meticulously recreated Giacometti’s studio, using archive photos and footage. The Giacometti Foundation in Paris assisted the production, on the condition that any artworks created for the film would be destroyed after production was completed.
According to the website of the art auction house Christie’s, the portrait of James Lord sold in November 2015 for $20,885,000. Painted in 1964, it was 45 ¾ x 31 ¾ in. The painting was called “James Lord.” Christie’s writes: "The result of this intense exchange between Giacometti and James Lord, the artist and his sitter, is a superb head whose eyes flash the penetrating gaze of a Byzantine icon, a seated figure that displays the assertive presence of an Egyptian pharaoh, and a lambent corona of silvery grey paint that projects the aura of a Christ en gloire, en majesté.[/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Portrait
trailer: youtu.be/sRsiW5c29Sk
Final Portrait [2017]
Written and directed by Stanley Tucci
[b]James [voiceover]: In 1964, I was a young writer living in Paris. I had written a few articles about Alberto Giacometti, who was one of the most accomplished and respected artists of his generation. I had become good friends with Giacometti and his brother, Diego. And one day, after an exhibition, he asked me to sit for a portrait. He told me it would take no longer than two to three hours. An afternoon at the most.
…
Annette [Alberto’s wife]: Okay. I’m going to Le Dome. Would you like to join me?
James: I would, but we’re about to start…
Annette: Ah, yes, you’re my husband’s next victim.
…
Alberto: You have the head of a brute.
James: Gee, thanks.
Alberto: Yeah. You look like a real thug.
James: Thank you.
Alberto: If I was to paint you as I see you now and a policeman was to see this painting, you’d be thrown in jail, like that.
James: Perhaps we shouldn’t continue.
Alberto: No, no, no. It’s all right. Because I’ll never be able to paint you as I see you.
James: Are you sure?
Alberto: Yes, of course. It’s impossible.
…
Alberto: Just so you know, it is also impossible to ever finish a portrait.
James: What do you mean?
Alberto: Well, portraits used to be finished. They had to be. They were necessary. It was a substitute for a photograph. Now, portraits have no meaning.
James: So, what we’re doing is meaningless?
Alberto: Mm. And impossible. And I’m not even doing it. I can only ever try to do it. So on that note, shall we stop for the day?
…
James [voiceover]: Each night, after working with me, Giacometti would work with Caroline, a prostitute with whom he’d been openly carrying on a relationship for three years. Are you done? She’d become his primary model, his nighttime companion…and his obsession.
…
James: Have you always been like this?
Alberto: Like what?
James: So doubtful of your own ability.
Alberto: Of course. It gets worse every year.
James: But you become more successful every year.
Alberto: What better breeding ground for doubt than success?
…
Alberto: It’s what I deserve, I suppose, after 35 years of dishonesty. That’s what I am. I’m dishonest. I’m a… I’m a liar.
James: Dishonesty? How do you mean?
Alberto: All these years that I’ve been showing things. They were all… they were all unfinished. Probably shouldn’t have been started in the first place. Then again, if I hadn’t shown them, I would have felt like a coward, so…Ugh! I don’t know. I’m neurotic.
James: Well, I understand that. I had a friend who was so neurotic, he ended up committing suicide.
Alberto: I’m sorry.
James: Hmm. Do you ever think about it?
Alberto: Suicide? Mm. Every day. Of course. It’s not like I feel life is bad. It’s just that I…I think death must be the most fascinating experience, you know? I’m just…I’m just curious.
…
Alberto [to James]: I hid it in the toilet. Not in. Up.
…
James: How did it go?
Diego [Alberto’s brother]: He made out like a capitalist.
…
James: So, what did you give them?
Diego: Drawings that were like hundreds of others he’s done.
James: And they were happy?
Diego: Happy? Of course they were. They know those are what sells. Those are “Giacomettis”!
…
Alberto [examining James’s face]: Front on, you look like a brute. Side on, you look like a degenerate…One way you go to jail. The other, you go straight to the asylum. I’ll probably meet you in there.
…
Annette: How do you like posing?
James: I like it. I do. But it’s, you know, it can be exhausting. He makes me nervous sometimes. The way he yells at the canvas when things aren’t going well. But what’s really disturbing is just how the portrait itself seems to come and go as if Alberto has no control over it whatsoever. Then other times, it just disappears entirely. I feel like this could go on for months.
Annette: Sometimes it does.
James: There’s nothing anyone can do about it?
Annette: No.
James: Even Alberto?
Annette: Especially Alberto.[/b]
This is the part that goes far over my head.
[b]Alberto [more to himself than to James]: Yeah, the nose is in place now. That’s some progress.
…
Alberto: Have you ever wanted to be a tree?
James: Um, no.
…
James [voiceover]: I was glad when that day’s session was over. Giacometti was miserable and his mood was pervasive. I was to find out that evening that Caroline had gone missing.
…
Diego [of the missing Caroline]: He’s too attached to her. He goes crazy without her. He makes himself go crazy.
James: Yeah, why?
Diego: My brother can only be happy when he is desperate and uncomfortable in every part of his life.
James: Well, he should be very happy, then. But it’s like he’s determined to remain completely unsatisfied.
Diego: No, not completely, just perfectly.
…
Alberto: Have you ever killed anyone?
James: No. Why do you ask?
Alberto: I think you’re the sort of person who’s capable of doing anything, and I mean that as a compliment.
James: Thank you. What about you? Have you ever killed anyone?
Alberto: Mm. In my mind, I’ve killed many people.
James: Who are these poor souls?
Alberto: Just people. Women. Before I could go to sleep, when I was young, every night I’d fantasize about killing two women. After I raped them.
James: Oh. And… and this helped you fall asleep?
Alberto: Yes. It comforted me.
…
Alberto: Cezanne was right.
James: About what?
Alberto: Squaring everything. Everything is a cone or a cylinder or a sphere…Cezanne was the last great painter. It was just too bad the Cubists took him so literally.
James: The Cubists produced very pretty things.
Alberto: Oh, who needs pretty? Then they realized they’d reached a dead end and gave up. Picasso and Braque were the really guilty ones.
James: Yes, but Picasso moved on.
Alberto: Oh, yes, so that he could copy every great artist that ever lived.
James: I know, but every artist copies.
Alberto: Yes, but you do it as an exercise. It’s just an exercise.
James: Oh, Alberto. I think you’re being a bit harsh.
Alberto: No, it’s true. I’m telling you, I promise you. Picasso could be so pompous. “I was unable to reach the top of the scale of values, so I smashed the scale.” Oh, that’s bullshit.
James: He really said that?
Alberto: Of course he did. Who else would say it? Picasso’s always making statements like that, you know. At first they sound like they’re so full of wit, but they’re full of shit. They have absolutely no meaning.[/b]
This is the part where I get stuck.
[b]James [voiceover]: I decided to take up swimming as a way to relieve not only the physical strain of posing but what was slowly becoming a psychological strain as well. One morning after my swim, I was invited to see the ceiling of the opera house that Chagall had just painted. The magnificence of the work left me feeling lighter than I’d felt in days. Then, I went to sit for Giacometti…
Alberto [in the studio at the canvas]]: Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Look at this. It’s hopeless. The head is all lopsided. It’s a mess!
…
Alberto [muttering aloud more to himself]: Chagall. Opera. Fucking house painting. You can’t compare that to what I’m trying to do here.
…
James [after 12 days of posing]: Oh, my God.
Diego: What?
James: How much longer can it go on like this?
Diego: It could go on forever.
James: He says a portrait can never be finished.
…
James: Well, at any rate, I can’t keep doing this. It seems like we pose for hours and hours and nothing happens.
Annette: That’s the reason why I don’t pose anymore.
James: Why?
Annette: Because your whole life can be swallowed up.
…
Alberto [staring at the canvas]: It’s gone too far. At the same time, not far enough. I’ll never find a way out of this.
James: Well, we could always just stop.
Alberto: No, we can’t stop…I have to stop.
…
James [looking at the canvas]: Wow. It looks really good. What’d you do?
Alberto: I have no idea.
…
James: I wish that I could see things the way you do.
Alberto: That’s all I’m trying to do. I just want to show how things appear to me. But I’m unable to do that.
James: No, that’s not true.
Alberto: When I was young, I thought I could do everything. When I grew up, I realized I could do nothing. That’s what kept me going. Four more sittings. How does that sound?
James: Thank you.
Alberto: You don’t have to do that. We’ve worked on it together. I don’t know.
James: That’s…I guess that’s true. I certainly don’t feel how Madame Cezanne did.
Alberto: What do you mean?
James: In the end she said she just felt like an apple.
…
James [at the studio which had been ransacked]: Oh, my God. What happened? Did they take anything?
Diego: No, no.
James: Well, shall we call the police?
Alberto: No, no, no. It wasn’t thieves. They came for me.
Diego: It was Caroline’s pimps. It’s a warning.
…
Pimp: It’s going to be the same price. Whether you sleep with her or she just sit in front of you.
Alberto: I see. Same price for both. Mm. You don’t want to charge me more for one?
Pimp: What?
Alberto: Which one would you charge me more for?
Pimp: For fucking her. We could charge you more for both things. We can take more for both. Alberto: Okay. Okay. I don’t mind.
Pimp: Okay. So…so we can get a lot more in that case. Another 10 per hour for each.
Alberto: Good.
…
Alberto [putting a pile of money on the table]: This pile is all retroactive.
Pimp: What?
Alberto: It’s payment for the last six months that I’ve spent with her. And this pile is in advance for the next six months.
Pimp: Ah. Cheers.
Alberto: Cheers!
…
James [after the pimps leave]: It looks like you made them happy.
Alberto: Please. I would have paid ten times that amount.
James: What do you mean?
Alberto: She’s given me so much.
…
Alberto: Oh, fuck!
James: What are you doing?
Alberto: Negative work. I have to do this. Sometimes, you know, to do something, you can only do it by undoing it.
James: Yes, but how many times?
Alberto: Mm? How many times? Good question. It’s not always as easy as you think.
James: What isn’t?
Alberto: The undoing of something.
James: I thought the portrait looked really good.
Alberto: When?
James: Earlier, when we started.
Alberto: It can be very tempting to be satisfied with what’s easy. That happens a lot when people tell you something’s good. There. That’s good. [/b]
You can just imagine what he means by that here.
Alberto: What’s the matter?
James: Nothing. It’s just sometimes it feels like there’s very little hope.
Alberto: Hope? Is that what you want? Hope?
James: Well, it’d be nice. Hm. We’ve been doing this for a while now.
Alberto: Yes, but, you know, for me, whenever I feel the most hopeful, that’s the time that I give up.
And it’s precisely this sort of “explanation” that most exasperates those of who are not artists. We’re just not sure how much of it is bullshit. Next up: Day 17
James: You know when he uses the big brush with the grey paint and he undoes everything he’s already done?
Diego: Uh-huh.
James: It’s normally after that that he grabs a black brush with a fine tip and he starts to construct the head all over again from nothing for the 100th time, right?
Diego: Yeah. Basically, yes.
James: Then he’s onto the highlights with the ochre - and the grey and all.
Diego: The grey. Yes.
James: And then he finishes with the final touches of white. Then he gets that big brush again…and obliterates everything he’s already done.
Diego: Right.
James: That’s when I’m gonna stop him.
Diego: What do you mean?
James: I mean I’m gonna try to stop him.
Diego: Okay. Yeah. You’re very brave.
That’s the plan. It works.
[b]James: I don’t know how to thank you. It’s been an honor to pose for you.
Alberto: Are you out of your mind?
James: I didn’t say I wanted to do it again.
…
James: The next day, Giacometti and I went for a walk and said our goodbyes. He told me he would have liked to accompany me to the airport, but he was hesitant to ever get back into a car any time soon. The portrait was shipped to an exhibition in the States and I returned to New York for an extended stay. Giacometti and I wrote often but never saw each other again, as he was to die a short time later. In his last letter, Giacometti told me how much he enjoyed painting my portrait and that he hoped I would come back soon so that we could start…all over… again.[/b]