Museum Hours

What more could be said about Giacometti ?  The word that comes to mind when considering his classic sculpted figures is etiolated: pallid, drawn, not just devoid of light but devoid of substance. The attempt to give depth just results in further elongation as though multiple dimensions cannot be achieved simultaneously. The sheer effort of will required to study and reflect on the human form is such that it is impossible to see them all. Indeed Giacometti is more likely to emphasise gaps and holes; often jagged and raw in nature. Much of this seems to prefigure death and dissolution and reflects the shattering effect of the Second World War and the horrors it unleashed.  Walking round the exhibition one is reminded of the blasted trees in a Paul Nash painting of the trenches. It is as though humans have been reduced to something between automata with straight backs and legs from which most of the joints have been removed and shambling remnants - or indeed revenants -