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 GiacomettiRead
If only someone else could paint what I see, it would be marvellous, because then I wouldnt have to paint at all.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the desire for the ability to share one's unique vision without the effort of creating it oneself.
Alberto Giacometti's quote reflects the frustration and challenges faced by artists in conveying their inner visions through their art. It captures the yearning for someone else to articulate the beauty and depth of what they perceive, suggesting that the process of creation can be burdensome and that the artist longs for an easier way to communicate their thoughts and feelings.
In practice
This quote could be used in an art class to discuss the challenges of artistic expression.
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.
Artistically I am still a child with a whole life ahead of me to discover and create. I want something, but I won't know what it is until I succeed in doing it.
In the past I have never thought about loneliness when working, and I don't think about it now. Yet there must be a reason for the fact that so many people talk about it.
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.
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.
I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality... to protect myself.
I alter some things, eliminate and try again until I am satisfied. Then begins the mental working out of this material in its breadth, its narrowness, its height and depth.
All my work is much more peaceful than I am.
How quiet the writing, how noisy the printing.
I wrote 'My Name is Red' just to remember painting, where the hand does it before the intellect. When I'm captive to it, I'm a happier person. Kierkegaard tells us that a happy person is someone who lives in the present; the unhappy person, someone who lives either in the past or the future.
Fashion is in the sky, the streets, fashion has to do with ideas, the way in which we live, the events surrounding us.
The best poems take long journeys. I like poetry best that journeys--while remaining in the human scale--to the other world, which may be a place as easily overlooked as a bee's wing
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