Influences (Giacometti)

 

Don Farrell - Creases - 27 x 31 cm - 10 1/2 x 12 1/4 in - mixed water soluble media on paper

I feel Giacometti was a master of composition. The more I peruse his work the more I have come to appreciate the thoroughness of his considerations. My painting “Creases” is an example of permitting Giacometti to influence my work.

By permitting myself to be influenced has nothing to do with emulating. It is appreciating, as in his painting “Still Life with an Apple”, the level of his compositional sophistication and trying to reach his thoroughness.

I will limit comparisons to a couple areas – integration and parallels.

In my painting note how the seam in the pot is in line with a line in the drawer below. Giacometti did a similar integration with lines which run from the bottom of the painting up through the apple to dark horizontals which will eventually return you back to the bottom and back to the apple. I used the creases in the white cloth and stronger values to bring you to the pot. I also used the drawer handle as a visual pull for the pot as Giacometti did for a pull from the apple.

Giacometti masterfully limited his use of perspective, in fact he disrupted perspective with a masterful use of cubism, I could go on and on. I decided to provide the illusion of depth by using the parallels of the creases and the shadows of the pot and two parallel cast shadows with no vanishing point.

I could write at length on this wonderful painting by Giacometti, I think I may one day…

Alberto Giacometti - Still Life with an Apple - 1937 - 72 x 75 cm - 28 x 29 in - oil on canvas

 

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