The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Alberto Giacometti · L’Homme qui marche I · a single standing male figure in bronze, about life size, about 1.8 metres high, striding, its feet sunk in a low base · modelled in Paris in 1960 and cast from the plaster model in a bronze edition made for Giacometti in his lifetime by the Susse foundry, Paris · shown in the group with which he won the Grand Prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale of 1962 · one cast in the courtyard of the Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, since 1964; another sold at Sotheby’s, London, in February 2010 · the unit scored is the 1960 model as realised in the lifetime bronze edition, each lifetime cast an instance of the one work; casts made after his death in 1966 fall outside it
Mode
The figure as seen, not as built: a body thinned by the distance from which it is seen, its surface left as the record of the search
Mythos
The striding figure of Egypt and the kouros, the pilgrim and the wanderer: the human being as the one who goes on
Phase
Modelled in 1960, thirteen years after the first walking figure; cast in Giacometti’s lifetime and shown at Venice in 1962
Presentation
Bronze, about life size, cast from a plaster model in a lifetime edition; one figure on a low base, its surface kneaded and scored throughout
Register
Quiet: pathos and an austere grandeur, endurance rather than terror
Scale
One body at the viewer’s own height, one act, one material
Governing Proposition
A naked man stands about as tall as the person looking at him, thinned to a stalk: a small head thrust forward on a long neck, a narrow trunk, arms hanging at his sides, long legs in a wide stride and very large feet sunk in a low base. The whole surface is kneaded, scored and pitted, the search of the hand carried into the bronze. Seen from the side he leans into his step; seen from the front he nearly disappears. The wager of the figure is that a sculpture can be made of a man as he is seen across a room or a street, with the distance eaten into his body, and that the human figure, reduced to what cannot be taken from it, still walks: going on, with no destination shown and nothing to lean on.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
A naked man in bronze strides on a low base. He is about life size, about 1.8 metres, a little taller than an average adult, so he is met at the viewer’s own height, not above it or below it. Alberto Giacometti modelled him in Paris in 1960, and the figure was cast from the plaster model by the Susse foundry for Giacometti in his lifetime, in an edition. One cast has stood in the courtyard of the Fondation Maeght at Saint-Paul-de-Vence since the Fondation opened in 1964. Another was sold at Sotheby’s in London in February 2010.
He has no features that make a portrait. He is thinned to a stalk: a small head thrust slightly forward on a long neck, a narrow trunk, arms hanging a little bent at his sides, long legs in a wide stride, and very large feet sunk into the base. The whole surface is kneaded, scored and pitted, the clay and plaster worked by hand and carried into the bronze. Seen from the side, he leans forward into his step. Seen from the front, he nearly disappears.
A sculpture in an edition is one work in several objects. Every cast made in Giacometti’s lifetime is an instance of this one, and it is read from what all of them share; the casting is the foundry’s, the medium’s ordinary division of labour. Any cast made after his death in 1966 falls outside the work. The original plaster is context, as is Walking Man II of the same year, a different model and a different work, and so are the walking figures of 1947 to 1950 from which this one descends.
Movement II
The striding figure is among the oldest in sculpture. The figures of Egypt stand with one foot forward, and after them came the kouros, which Giacometti copied and studied. Rodin made a headless Walking Man and with it made the stride itself the subject. Modern sculpture had meanwhile gone to mass and closed form, in Brancusi, Lipchitz and Moore. This figure is the old archetype and nothing else: the pilgrim and the wanderer, the human being as the one who goes on. The stride bears the whole of it, and nothing is laid over it.
In the early 1930s Giacometti had made Surrealist objects. In 1935 he broke with them to return to the model, to the Surrealists’ derision, and for years the heads failed and the figures shrank until they were the size of a matchstick. Then they grew again. From 1947 the departure was made: the figure as it is seen, not as it is built; mass refused for a line that stands in space; a surface left as the record of the search; a sculpture that carries in itself the distance from which it is to be seen. The walking man of 1947 was the first of these.
The figure of 1960 comes thirteen years later. It perfects that swerve rather than making it, and it states it at life size and in the round, at its fullest. Its writers had begun before it, with Sartre’s essay on the figures of 1948 and Genet’s L’atelier d’Alberto Giacometti. It is also particular, made by one hand from the model in a Paris studio, a body of this proportion, this surface and this lean. The particular is thin by design. He has no face, no history and no place.
Movement III
Between 1958 and 1960 Giacometti worked on a commission for the Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York. A walking man, a standing woman and a large head were conceived for it, and he abandoned it. The figure was made for a plaza it never stood in, a man walking among towers, and the plaza is not in the work. What remains is the body alone on its base.
The thinness is what the figure knows. A figure of normal mass at this height would be a statue of a man; this is a man seen across a space, with the space eaten into him. One law governs the whole: the further a part is from the ground, the more the distance takes from it, so the head is the slightest part and the feet are the heaviest. The feet hold the walker to the earth. The surface, scored everywhere, refuses a contour, and the eye finds no edge to rest on; the figure seems to vibrate where it meets the air. At about life size its distance is a distance within the same room. Smaller it would be a figurine, larger a monument.
The proportion is exact to its own law: head, trunk and limbs are thinned in one ratio, so that nothing reads as distortion and the figure reads as a man. The stride is balanced so that he leans forward and does not fall, on two thin legs at life size. The marks of the hand hold at every distance, a vibration from across the room and a record of the making close up, and the foundry carried them into bronze. The arms and hands are summary, and the head is barely more than a knot. The bronze is a cast of the making, which was done in plaster.
Movement IV
A person seen is not the person measured. The figure is made as a man appears across a room or a street, narrowed by distance, and the bronze makes that appearance solid. That was Giacometti’s own account of the thinness. The figure says a second thing, which is in the bronze as well: the human figure, reduced to what cannot be taken from it, still walks. He goes forward with no destination shown and nothing to lean on. The condition is persistence without arrival.
Much of what the figure gives is a state, solitude and endurance, rendered so economically that it is easily taken for a symbol of the years after the war. The existential reading has been brought to it for decades, and Giacometti resisted it. The sight is quiet: a figure at one’s own height who seems far away though he is near; the profile, a line leaning into empty space with nothing ahead of it; the small forward head, the one point at which he seems to look; and the surface close to, torn and kneaded as though still being made.
In 1962 the figure was in the group with which Giacometti won the Grand Prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale. It became the image of the human figure in postwar art. Later figurative sculpture answers it, the attenuated figure became a type, and the walking man has a life far outside sculpture as an emblem. The reorganisation it states belongs to the figures of 1947 to 1950 and the whole late work, and after 1960 sculpture turned largely to Minimalism and away from the figure.
Movement V
In the courtyard at Saint-Paul-de-Vence a cast has stood in the open air since 1964. Bronze is the most durable of materials short of stone, and its patina weathers outside without loss of form. The work is whole in every lifetime cast, and an edition cannot lose its form by the damage or loss of one object. It has been in view since 1960 and shown and lent across the world, and nothing on its surface is fixed to its year.
In February 2010 a cast sold at Sotheby’s in London for about £65 million, setting a record for a work of art at auction. The price is presence, not proof. The edition is the work’s one exposure: 66 years is a short span for survival, and a figure in several objects invites the posthumous cast and the question of what is authentic. Casts made after 1966 are not this work.
The questions have stayed open: whether the thinness is perception or a condition; whether the walker goes toward something or merely goes; what the plaza would have made of him among its towers; and what an edition is, a work in several objects treated as one emblem. Bonnefoy’s monograph, James Lord’s memoir of sittings and the exhibitions of the last two decades have returned to them, though much of that writing is about Giacometti and the postwar figure in general. Seen from the side, he still leans into his step, with nothing ahead of him.
Act III · The Twelve
Judged by the subtractive test, which the figure has already applied to itself: Giacometti took away until what remained could not be thinned further without ceasing to stand. Remove the stride and this is one of his standing women, and the claim on movement goes. Remove the weight of the feet and the base and the thinness has nothing to rise from; the feet make the figure walk on the ground rather than float. Remove the forward lean and it marches instead of going on. Nothing ornamental is left to remove. What holds the axis is substitution: Walking Man II, made the same year with another surface and stance, shows that this figure’s particulars were one choice among close neighbours, and the surface, worked everywhere, is permitted in its detail rather than compelled at each point.
Score: 8.7 / 10
What can be stated, and holds. A person seen is not the person measured: the figure is made as a man appears across a room or a street, narrowed by distance and space, and the bronze makes that appearance solid. And the human figure reduced to what cannot be taken away still walks: the condition disclosed is persistence without arrival, a body going forward with no destination shown and nothing to lean on. Both are claims about people and about seeing, not moods. What holds the axis at the gate and not above it is how much of what the figure gives is a state, solitude and endurance, rendered so economically that it is easily taken for a symbol of the postwar condition rather than a disclosure. A state ranks below a meaning.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Elevation in one register, and a quiet one: pathos and an austere grandeur rather than terror or transport. Its places: the first sight, a figure at one’s own height that seems far away though it is near, which is its strangeness and its height; the stride seen in profile, a line leaning into empty space with nothing ahead of it; the small, forward head, the one point at which the figure seems to look; and the surface close to, torn and kneaded as though still being made. The height is real; its frequency is that of one figure seen from several sides, not of recurring summits. What holds it: one temperature, no scale beyond the body’s, and a silhouette so often reproduced that the first sight must work against the familiar image.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Myth built, and built into the pose, which is why the axis clears the gate. The walking man is among the oldest archetypes of the figure in sculpture: the striding figures of Egypt, one foot forward, and the kouros after them, which Giacometti copied and studied; the pilgrim and the wanderer, the human being as the one who goes on. The figure is that archetype and nothing else, and the stride is load-bearing, not an allusion laid over it. It is also particular: a body of this proportion, this surface and this lean, made by one hand from the model in a Paris studio. What holds it below the top: the particular is thin by design, a man without face, history or place, and the existential readings that deepen the myth are brought by its readers more than built.
Score: 8.7 / 10
The inheritance: the walking figure from Egypt to Rodin’s headless Walking Man, which made the stride itself the subject; the volumetric modern sculpture of Brancusi, Lipchitz and Moore, mass and closed form; and Giacometti’s own Surrealist objects of the early 1930s, from which he broke in 1935 to return to the model, to the derision of the Surrealists. The departure, made from 1947: the figure as seen, not as built; mass refused for a line that stands in space; a surface left as the record of the search. The stake was his whole position, years of failed heads and of figures that shrank to the size of a matchstick before they grew again. Held below the top because this figure perfects a swerve made thirteen years earlier, and the commission it was made for was abandoned rather than risked in public.
Score: 8.7 / 10
Would a different form change what the work knows? Entirely. The thinness is the knowledge: a figure of normal mass at this height would be a statue of a man, and this is a man seen across a space, with the space eaten into him. The surface is the second instrument: kneaded and scored everywhere, it refuses a contour, so the eye finds no edge to rest on and the figure seems to vibrate where it meets the air. The scale is the third: at about life size the figure is met at the viewer’s level, so its distance is a distance within the same room; smaller it would be a figurine, larger a monument. The heavy feet and base are the fourth, holding the walker to the earth. Held below the top because the bronze carries a making done in plaster, one step removed.
Score: 9.0 / 10
Evidence over promise: 66 years of return, and a literature that begins before this figure, with Sartre’s essay on the figures of 1948 and Genet’s L’atelier d’Alberto Giacometti, and runs through Bonnefoy’s monograph, James Lord’s memoir of sittings and the exhibitions of the last two decades. The questions stay open: whether the thinness is perception, the figure as seen at a distance, which was Giacometti’s own account, or a condition, the existential reading he resisted; whether the walker goes toward something or merely goes; what the plaza commission would have made of him among towers; and what an edition is, a work in several objects treated as one emblem. Held a step below because much of the literature is about Giacometti and the postwar figure in general.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Published, so force and reach are scored together. The field is European sculpture of the 1950s and 1960s. The intrinsic force: the walking figures reorganised what a figurative sculpture could be after Rodin and after abstraction, a figure that carries the conditions of its own seeing, and this model is that idea’s fullest and most public statement, at life size and in the round. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the Grand Prize at Venice in 1962 and its standing since as the image of the human figure in postwar art; later figurative sculpture that answers it, and the attenuated figure as a type; and a life outside sculpture as an emblem. The discount: the reorganisation belongs to the figures of 1947 to 1950 and the whole late work, sculpture after 1960 turned largely to Minimalism and away from the figure, and a share of the reach is fame.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Survival weighed on form, then presence, then fabric. Form: the work is whole in every lifetime cast, and an edition cannot lose its form by the damage or loss of one object. Presence: continuously in view since 1960, in a museum courtyard since 1964, shown and lent across the world, among the most recognised sculptures of its century, and in the record of the 2010 sale; that is wide presence, and fame earns at most a tenth. Fabric: bronze is the most durable medium short of stone, and its patinas weather in the open air without loss of form. The surface carries nothing fixed to 1960. Against it: 66 years is the shorter span, and an edition invites the posthumous cast and the question of what is authentic. Held a tenth below the top of the usual figure for its age.
Score: 8.9 / 10
Craft read to the same anchors as every medium: command of modelling in clay and plaster for bronze, at life size, of a figure that must stand on two thin legs. The making is load-bearing. The proportion is exact to its own law, head, trunk and limbs thinned in one ratio so that nothing reads as distortion and the figure reads as a man; the stride is balanced so that the figure leans forward and does not fall; the feet carry the mass the rest refuses. The surface is torn, pressed and scored, and its marks hold at every distance, a vibration across the room and a record of the hand close up; the foundry carried that touch into bronze. The costs: the arms and hands are summary, the head is barely more than a knot, and the bronze is a cast of a making rather than the making.
Score: 8.8 / 10
Take the two most distant elements: the small head, a knot of scored bronze, and the great feet sunk in the base. They obey one law: the figure as seen across a space, eaten by it in proportion to its distance from the ground, the head furthest and slightest, the feet nearest and heaviest. The surface obeys the same law everywhere, worked and unresolved, so that no part is finished and no part is left. There is no second physics: no smooth passage, no descriptive detail, no attribute. But narrowness is not coherence, and the territory is narrow: one figure, one action, one material. The range within it, from head to feet and from the near-disappearance of the front view to the long stride of the side, is real and held, and the figure is held for the size of that territory.
Score: 8.7 / 10
The orders held: the body, as the whole matter; movement, the body’s one act; perception, since the figure carries the distance from which it is seen; consciousness, implied in the forward head and the direction of the walk; and the human condition as such, persistence without a destination, the order the work most claims. History is present only as the date, the years after the war, and in no sign. They are integrated: the stride places each. What holds the axis lowest is what is absent: no family, no labour, no city, though a plaza was its first destination, no state, no sacred, no natural order beyond the ground under the feet, no other person. One figure holds few orders by its form, and the figure describes the form.
Score: 6.5 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.5 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Living Form at 9.0, The Imperishable at 8.9, then The Made at 8.8. A form in which the thinness, the unresolved surface, the life size and the heavy feet are the instruments of what the figure knows about a man seen across a space; a bronze whole in every lifetime cast, in public view since 1960 and in the open air since 1964; and a proportion, a balance and a surface commanded at life size on two thin legs, the arms and head left summary.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 6.5: the body, movement, perception, consciousness and the human condition are held in one stride; family, labour, the city, the state, the sacred and any other person are not there, and one figure cannot hold them. Below the rest, The Unconcealment, The Sublime and The Bottomless Well at 8.5: a disclosure of seeing and persistence that is easily taken for a mood of its years; one quiet register in one figure; and a literature drawn more to the sculptor and the postwar figure than to this model.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.7 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 9.0, The Made at 8.8, The Inner Law at 8.7, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is met on all five: The Imperishable at 8.9, The Archetypal Deep at 8.7, The Swerve at 8.7 and Pressure on Tradition at 8.6 clear the bar of 8.5, and The Unconcealment meets it exactly at 8.5. The Universal Minimum is met (no axis but The Encompassed falls below 8.5, against 7.5) and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 6.5. Every summit condition is met; the work is held below the summit by its aggregate alone. The twelve sum to 102.1, an average of 8.51 that displays 8.5.
Basis · a reading from knowledge of the model of 1960 in its lifetime bronze casts, of the edition’s history in outline and of the literature on Giacometti. The bronze is known from reproduction and description rather than from long looking at any one cast, and where a judgment turns on the surface, the making above all, it is held more loosely. The work scored is one work in several objects: the 1960 model as realised in the bronze edition cast for Giacometti in his lifetime by the Susse foundry, Paris, each lifetime cast an instance of it, read from what all the casts share. The cast at the Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in its courtyard since 1964, and the cast sold at Sotheby’s, London, in February 2010 stand for it here. The casting is the foundry’s, the medium’s ordinary division of labour, and part of the work; patina and the condition of single casts are weighed only as facts of survival. No original has been lost or replaced. The original plaster, Walking Man II of the same year, the walking figures of 1947 to 1950 and the abandoned commission for the Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York, which the figure never stood in, are context and are not scored. Any cast made after Giacometti’s death in 1966 falls outside the unit. No words are quoted. Facts that could not be verified are not given, among them the number of casts in the edition and their dates, the collections that hold casts other than the two named, where the plaster is kept, the figure’s exact height, its base and patina, and its appearance on a banknote.