The Struggle for Reality: Giacometti and the Impossible Real

In Robert Hughes' article for Time magazine, written only 8 years after the artist's death, Hughes articulates Giacometti's struggle to make meaningful marks. The article sorts through common misconceptions, and also, indirectly, addresses the struggle to create.

...The painting('s)... real subject is the artist's lifelong obsession as a sculptor: the enormous difficulty of seeing anything clearly at all and the near impossibility of truthfully remaking what is seen into a lump of clay or a scribble on paper. Giacometti saw his own efforts as condemned to frustration. "There is no hope of achieving what I want, of expressing my vision of reality. I go on painting and sculpting because I am curious to know why I fail."...

       - Robert Hughes, Art: An Obsession with Seeing, Time Magazine, April 8, 1974

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Image: Giacometti, Head of Diego, Oil/Canvas, 1961