Lucy Foskett

Pair 3 Boccioni; Giacometti

November 2010

Tutor: Malcolm Mosley

 In this Essay I am comparing two works of Art both of which are sculptures.  Firstly I am going to describe both works of art separately considering their context as well as their formal elements and then I am going to compare and contrast the two.

 The first piece of work is the sculpture unique forms of continuity in space by Boccioni (appendix 1) which he made in 1913. Umberto Boccioni was an Italian painter and sculptor and studied art through the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. Boccioni decided to become a sculptor after visiting various studios in Paris 1912, Boccioni died from being thrown from his horse during a Calvary training exercise and was trampled he died at aged thirty three.

 The sculpture is bronze and is polished to a shining gold colour, the sculpture is smaller then adult life size and near the size of a five year old child. It is free standing and you can walk all the way round it. The figure is kind of an abstract expression showing speed; it has no arms and a featureless head and is wearing a helmet over the face. The hefty thighs and big chest suggest powerful muscles, the figure is much like a machine rather then a man.

 My second chosen work of art is the sculpture La Foret (appendix 2) by Giacometti which he made in 1950.  Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Alberto was born in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and was the eldest of four children he has also always been interested in art.

 Alberto attended the school of fine art in Geneva, and in 1922 he moved to Paris to study sculpture. This was where Giacometti experimented with cubism and surrealism and came to be one of the leading surrealist artists. The larger his sculptures became the thinner they got. I find his sculptures almost disturbing and quite creepy looking.

Both Boccioni and Giacometti’s sculptures are of figures, both of which are quite strange and disfigured. In Boccioni’s sculpture the body shape is all unusual looking and has a helmet covering the face, the sculpture also has no arms. I find Giacometti’s figures quite stick men like and until you look at them closely you can’t see weather they have any arms or legs. I feel Giacometti almost makes his sculptures look quite easy to make.

Boccioni’s sculptor was made from plaster and was never cast into bronze in his life time. Two casts were made in 1931 another two in 1949 and another eight in 1972. Giacometti’s sculptor of Le Foret was painted Bronze, his last multi figures compositions that were made represent Giacometti’s most sustained themes that he was pre occupied by in his life; sexual difference, urban space and the structural conditions of vision. As Boccioni’s lived such a short life after being killed in the world war this sculpture represents how he helped to define the nature of Italian futurism.

With both the sculptures they have quite a bit in common as they are both very unusual and disfigured, they represent different things but are both amazing defined figures that have a lot of background.

In conclusion I think that they both pursue what sculpture is and how different and wide ranged it is. My favourite one is the Boccioni sculpture because of the way it looks so unique, I really like the different shapes and how its been made compared to Giacometti’s sculpture I find his very unusual and not very attractive to look at.

Words: 600