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 GIACOMETTIIn a burning building I would save a cat before a Rembrandt.
More Alberto Giacometti Quotes
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Whores are the most honest girls. They present the bill right away.
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The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.
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When I see a head from a great distance, it ceases to be a sphere and becomes an extreme confusion falling down into the abyss.
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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.
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The form is always the measure of the obsession.
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I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality… to protect myself.
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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 -
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.
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When one lives with problems of importance, the prostitute is ideal. You pay, and whether or not you fail is of no importance. She doesn’t care.
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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.
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In a fire, between a Rembrandt and a cat, I would save the cat.
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I’ve tried doing so, for it was never my intention to paint only with gray. But in the course of my work I have eliminated one color after another, and what has remained is gray, gray, gray!
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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.
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All I can do will only ever be a faint image of what I see and my success will always be less than my failure or perhaps equal to the failure.
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At first, one sees the person who is modelling; but little by little, all of the possible sculptures that could be made come between artist and model.
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI