17

The sculptures which Giacometti produced during the first few years of his artistic maturity, following the difficulty of 1925, are clearly the work of a powerful and original artist. Despite their formal strength and plastic invention, however, the lucidity of hindsight reveals that the young man was not yet ready for the tests by which genius determines whether or not its possessor can become a great artist. The most important sculptures of these years nonetheless embody characteristics which are present in the major works executed two or three decades later.

Of the pieces produced between 1925 and 1930, one of the most notable was executed in 1926 and is now generally called The Spoon Woman, though the artist himself was still referring to it as late as 1948 simply as Large Woman, which relates it more logically and closely to the later sculpture. The dominant feature of this work is a large, spoon-shaped form, convex at the top and concave at the bottom, suggesting an abdomen. This form is surmounted by a stylized thorax and small head; it stands upon a pedestal which makes no effort to represent human limbs. The interrelation between these features is subtle but powerful, showing for the first time how skillfully Giacometti was able to work with space as an integral element of the sculptural medium. He clearly expressed certain of the basic aspects of his lifework in this first Large Woman. Though only fifty-seven inches high, she creates an immediate impression of monumentality. Her commanding presence requires the viewer to face her squarely rather than from an angle or in profile. This ability to compel direct frontal contemplation also confers upon her a numinous and hieratic aura. She is a concept rather than an individual. The woman is a goddess, the sculpture an idol. It possesses a profound formal and spiritual affinity with the marble sculptures of the Cyclades.

Another intriguing and significant sculpture of this period, executed shortly after the Large Woman, is entitled The Couple. Very different from its predecessor, less commanding both as an artistic accomplishment and as an imaginative statement, this work also is a prefiguration of things to come. Again the position is forcefully frontal. But the figures are neither remote nor hieratic. On the contrary, they are present, tangible, physical, and, above all, sexual. Highly but roughly stylized, the man and woman simultaneously symbolize and represent their specifically genital characteristics: the former cylindrical and erect; the latter, curvilinear and orificial. Together and close, still they stand rigidly apart, separated not only by space but also by irreconcilable dissimilarity of form and function. Each seems frozen in self-awareness, unable to acknowledge the presence of the other. The formal purpose of the piece seems intellectual rather than emotional, despite its explicit sexual character. It is an intimate revelation, as well as a manifest image, and in this respect it already demonstrates a disposition and a need which were to remain constant throughout Giacometti’s life and work but which were to exact the most austere reckoning before they could infuse either the work or the life with its grandest meaning.

 

Alberto and Flora were romantically happy during the first months of their affair. Love seemed to eliminate from reality every necessity save its own. They went to the Bois and sat holding hands by the lake; they visited the Louvre, the Luxembourg Gardens, the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes, where they both found more pleasure watching children at play than watching animals in cages. Alberto never explained to Flora, however, that he was incapable of becoming a father. Though they talked about love and art, they never spoke of the future. Marriage was not mentioned. Flora would have liked nothing better and longed for Alberto to propose. When he didn’t, she fatalistically made the best of it. After all, she was happy as things were, and her “Russian” soul disposed her to feel that if only she waited long enough, everything would eventually turn out as she hoped.

Alberto sculpted her portrait and exhibited it at the Salon des Tuileries. She, in turn, executed a bust of him, which proved to be surprisingly skilled and lifelike, though academic. A photograph has survived of the two young artists and lovers seated on either side of Flora’s portrait of Alberto. He gazes at the world with forceful but sensitive self-confidence, an enigmatic half-smile upon his lips. Flora looks at her lover wistfully, as she had cause to do. She is attractive but not beautiful, and there is something weak in her face. It must have been apparent even then that she was one of those destined to be destroyed by circumstances. Between them stands her portrait of him. It appears to have been executed with love, for it is not only a sensitive likeness but an idealized image of the model as the sculptress must have wished him to be. Alberto is portrayed as a strong, dynamic, serious young man, which he was, but there is no sign of the elusive, hesitant, noncommittal disposition which Flora knew only too well to be part of her lover’s character. So the portrait in the photograph may seem to stand between them not only as a concrete object but also as a symbol of the differences and misunderstandings which would determine the outcome of their dreams.

Flora could neither understand nor make allowances for the obscure dictates of an artist’s nature. And Alberto could not be expected to give suitable consideration to the possibility that his behavior might seem perverse and selfish. It became evident that he was not the sort of man who could be counted on as a dependable lover or who was likely to assume the responsibilities of a husband, however unconventional. Sometimes without explanation, he would fail to appear for days at a time. Flora’s sense of security was already precarious. Alberto’s seeming indifference distressed her. She tried not to cling, but it wasn’t easy. And there were difficulties even more troubling to a young woman in search of a mate. Alberto did not seem to find sexual satisfaction with her. Though ardent beforehand, he frequently turned out to be impotent when the time came to prove his ardor. Nor did he attempt to compensate for his failure by increased demonstrations of tenderness. He refused to spend the night with her even when most of it had already passed. Something was wrong. Still, the two clung to one another. Flawed as it may have been, this was Alberto’s first full experience of romantic love, and it would turn out to be Flora’s last. Neither wanted to acknowledge that it was a failure.

Flora was not invited to visit Bregaglia. Alberto would never have accepted the presence in his mother’s home of a woman whose reputation Annetta might question. Besides, Bianca was to be found in Maloja during the summers. Alberto’s fondness for her was not affected by his knowledge that another woman was waiting in Paris. They continued to go for long walks, hold hands, and squeeze together into little hiding places. She was never his mistress, but he was prepared to go to unusual lengths to demonstrate that he was her master. One evening when they were alone together in her room he took a penknife from his pocket and told her that he wanted to carve his initial in her arm. She must have been startled, and had every reason to be alarmed, but he knew how to be persuasive. Bianca agreed. Alberto opened his knife and eagerly went to work on her left upper arm. He could not have cut too deeply, for although she bore a scar for many years, it eventually disappeared. Still, he cut deeply enough to cause blood to flow, and Bianca must have felt some pain, which she endured with calm—and perhaps with pleasure. He carved a small capital A. He was excited and proud. “Now you are my very own little cow,” he told her, pretending that the incident was a joke. Bianca was pleased because Alberto was pleased. But it was not a joke. For years to come, Bianca had time to gaze with romantic conjecture at the place where the artist’s knife had entered her flesh.

The families of the young sweethearts, having no reason to blink at implications, did not regard the incident as a joke. They blamed Bianca for agreeing to Alberto’s request and him for taking advantage of her. Assuming that there was more to this than met the eye, whether they saw what it was or not, they disapproved. The pocket knife which Alberto used to carve his initial in Bianca’s arm also served him to work at his sculptures. As always, he preferred to work with pocket knives rather than with conventional sculptor’s implements. When he took his knife to carve Bianca in person rather than to struggle helplessly with her portrait, he encountered no resistance, no difficulty. She submitted to him as willingly as she had long before obstinately resisted in the basement of the Villino Giacometti. He was signing his name, as it were, to the model rather than to the portrait. And perhaps some uncertainty did exist in the mind of the artist as to where the most vital and convincing reality dwelt.