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 ground matter to find the continuous line. And when I realized I could not find it, I stopped, as if an unseen someone had slapped my hands.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Essentially, perspective is a form of abstraction. It simplifies the relationship between eye, brain and object. It is an ideal view, imagined as being seen by a one-eyed, motionless person who is clearly detached from what he sees. It makes a God of the spectator, who becomes the person on whom the whole world converges, the Unmoved Onlooker.
I wrote poetry from the time I could write. That was the only way I could begin to express who I was but the poems didn't make sense to my teachers. They didn't rhyme. They were about the wind sounds, the planets' motions, never about who I was or how I felt. I didn't think I felt anything. I was this mind more than a body or a heart. My mind photographing the stars, hearing the wind.
And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory; and grasp the tail that like a monstrous asp coils round your heavy velvet paws.
Nothing convinces an artist more of the arbitrariness of the means to which he resorts to attain a goal - however permanent it may be - than the creative process itself, the process of composition.
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