Giacometti's Lines

Alberto Giacometti was primarily known for his unique style of sculpture. But what I find most interesting about him are his line drawings. He often struggled for hours on end to capture the way he saw the still life subjects in front of him. Every line’s relation to one another was of utmost importance to him. He often relentlessly drew on top of previous lines until he got it just right. The result of this peculiar process was a composition that depended completely on the position and location of the artist. They weren’t drawings of any particular objects as much as they were of an entire point of view. He didn’t differentiate from object to object but saw a holism in the world around him. This is a manner of seeing which I think can be very useful when thinking about designing visuals. Do we wish to chop up the world around us, as is usually our nature when seeing, or do we aim for the more difficult way of seeing accomplished by Giacometti. This is an integral step in establishing a visual idiom before moving on to next phases of design.

Examples of Giacometti’s lines can be found here:

http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_380_434535_alberto-giacometti.jpg

http://www.surrealists.co.uk/artistsimages/AlbertoGiacometti-Diego1953.jpg