Quote

In every work of art the subject is primordial, whether the artist knows it or not. The measure of the formal qualities is only a sign of the measure of the artist's obsession with his subject the form is always in proportion to the obsession.

Alberto Giacometti

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Alberto Giacometti
Age: 64 †
Born: 1901
Born: October 10
Died: 1966
Died: January 11
Artist
Designer
Drawer
Graphic Artist
Jewelry Designer
Painter
Printmaker
Sculptor
Writer
Alberṭo Gʼaḳomeṭi
Always
Impossible
Obsession
Quality
Qualities
Whether
Proportion
Artist
Measure
Art
Sign
Form
Subject
Work
Subjects
Primordial
Every
Terrible
Formal

More quotes by Alberto Giacometti

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It was always disappointing to see that what I could really master in terms of form boiled down to so little.
Alberto Giacometti
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Once the object has been constructed, I have a tendency to rediscover in it, transformed and displaced, images, impressions, facts which have deeply moved me (often without my knowing it).
Alberto Giacometti
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All the sculptures of today, like those of the past, will end one day in pieces... So it is important to fashion ones work carefully in its smallest recess and charge every particle of matter with life.
Alberto Giacometti
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All the art of the past rises up before me, the art of all ages and all civilizations, everything becomes simultaneous, as if space had replaced time. Memories of works of art blend with affective memories, with my work, with my whole life.
Alberto Giacometti
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The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.
Alberto Giacometti
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The more you fail, the more you succeed. It is only when everything is lost and - instead of giving up - you go on, that you experience the momentary prospect of some slight progress. Suddenly you have the feeling - be it an illusion or not - that something new has opened up.
Alberto Giacometti
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Only reality interests me now and I know I could spend the rest of my life in copying a chair.
Alberto Giacometti
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(Art is) the residue of vision.
Alberto Giacometti
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The more I work, the more I see things differently, that is, everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.
Alberto Giacometti
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The head is what matters. The rest of the body plays the part of antennae making life possible for people and life itself is inside the skull.
Alberto Giacometti
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I don't know who I am or who I was. I know it less than ever. I do and I don't identify myself with myself. Everything is totally contradictory, but maybe I have remained exactly as I was as a small boy of twelve.
Alberto Giacometti
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I don't know if I work in order to do something, or in order to know why I can't do what I want to do.
Alberto Giacometti
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The one thing that fills me with enthusiasm is to try, despite everything, to get nearer to those visions that seem so hard to express.
Alberto Giacometti
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What I am looking for is not happiness. I work solely because it is impossible for me to do anything else.
Alberto Giacometti
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If only someone else could paint what I see, it would be marvellous, because then I wouldnt have to paint at all.
Alberto Giacometti
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I see something, find it marvelous, want to try and do it. Whether it fails or whether it comes off in the end becomes secondary. . . . So long as I've learned something about why.
Alberto Giacometti
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The older I grow, the more I find myself alone.
Alberto Giacometti
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Taste for things of the past evolves, doesn't it? What was a masterpiece a hundred years ago is no longer so today.
Alberto Giacometti
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In a fire, between a Rembrandt and a cat, I would save the cat.
Alberto Giacometti
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In a burning building I would save a cat before a Rembrandt.
Alberto Giacometti