Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man [Hardcover]

Ms. Laurie Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2003

Alberto Giacometti, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, was also one of the most enigmatic. In this interpretation of Giacometti and his work, art historian and psychoanalyst Laurie Wilson demonstrates how the artist's secret beliefs and emotional scars are reflected in his evocative sculpture, drawings and paintings. Wilson's Giacometti was an extremely imaginative child who entwined fantasy and real-life experiences. As he matured, the artist combined fact and fancy into evolving myths, part conscious and part unconscious. Drawing on biographical data uncovered during a decade of research, Wilson reconstructs traumatic events and issues in Giacometti's life, including family births and deaths in early childhood, world wars and their aftermath, and his intense and ambivalent relationship with his parents; and she examines their profound effects on his artistic evolution.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Laurie Wilson, professor emerita of art therapy at New York University, is an independent art historian and faculty member at the New York University Psychoanalytic Institute.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (May 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300090374
• ISBN-13: 978-0300090376
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,445,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A meticulous, scholarly, seminal body of work, November 17, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man (Hardcover)

Laurie Wilson (Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, NYU Medical Center, New York Center) has written the definitive biography of the skilled and talented artist Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, And The Man. Tracing Giacometti's roots from his imaginative childhood the traumas in his early life, to surviving the hardships of world wars, and the effects of his life experiences on the nature, theme, and interplay of his art, Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, And The Man offers a excellent wealth of documented insights into the creation and message behind one man's great art. Alberto Giacometti is a meticulous, scholarly, seminal body of work which is especially recommended for academic library collections.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wilson's Giacometti and the vital necessity of art, October 17, 2003

By 

Luba Kessler (Roslyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man (Hardcover)

This biographical work is an exquisite study of the artist and of the vital necessity of his work to himself and to us, his audience. Wilson traces his life with a sensitivity that matches its history of loss and trauma while weaving it into an emotionally attuned connection to his work. The effect is an indelibly affecting portrait of this quintessential 20th century artist. This portrayal blends the best traditions of the psychoanalytic method of examining a life with appreciation of the artist's work on aesthetic and art historical grounds. The author brings to it a richly textured language, which avoids the possible pitfalls of formulaic interpreting, and instead brings to life the artist's personal and artistic existence. This feels particularly satisfying because it echoes Giacometti's own accomplishment: a rendering of human fragility and yet transcending it, and helping us transcend it through art.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The other ratings on this page are too high, April 5, 2006

By 

Medicine King - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man (Hardcover)

I have been doing extensive research on Giacometti, and this is one of the worst books I have come across. The author clearly has done a good deal of research, and this book may be good for you if you can weed out her ridiculous leaps of logic. She seems almost obsessed with demonstrating his sexual deviancy, at times in excrutiating ways. Besides the absurd psychoanalytic portrait she portrays (which is probably the basis for her contrived leaps in logic), the writing is pompous and pretentiously self assured. Here are some gems:

"Head of a Man on a Rod is usually discussed in terms of the terror Giacometti felt when he saw the Dutchman die...but the cavernously open mouth of the work may also convey unconscious homoerotic longings to be orally penetrated."

"After the failure of Giacometti's much publicized attempt to develop a mutually satisfying loving relationship with a woman...he split all womankind into two. Women could either be idealized, untouchable figures with whom he could have intellectual exchanges on the model of his mother; or they could be subordinates who he could dominate..."

"Giacometti's uneasiness with touching could also help explain his artistic preferences...Giacometti had not been well held as an infant or young boy, and it might have been too painful to see hands holding children with loving gestures"