Mythic Giacometti

by James Lord

The Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) was arguably the greatest sculptor of the twentieth century. He was also--as James Lord persuasively argued in Giacometti: A Biography --a heroic figure... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374218803
• ISBN13: 9780374218805
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 131 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Biographical Poetry

Mythic Giacometti is not a straight forward biography, but it's more telling as to the subject's character than almost any true "biography" I've read. Lord's raison d'être here is casting Giacometti in the light of a mythological hero--hence, we may suppose, the title. The conceit feels a bit hokey at first, and even at the end I must say I'm not entirely convinced that Giacometti is descendent from Oedipus, but the conceit allows Lord to explore Giacometti as more than an amalgamation of facts but as a whole rounded artistic entity. And that point of view is surely more enlightening for fans of Giacometti's remarkable artistic career.