Diego Seated 1948

Alberto Giacometti made 'Diego Seated' with oil on canvas, but when? Doesn’t really matter, does it? What matters is the layering and the scraping back, the ghostly presence conjured from thin washes and nervous lines. Look at the way Giacometti builds the figure, repeating and revising, almost trapping Diego in a cage of brushstrokes. It’s not just a portrait, but an act of searching, of trying to grasp something elusive. See the ochre streaks around the head, like a halo or a psychic emanation? The way the green jacket almost dissolves into the background, yet the orange shirt pops, anchoring the whole composition? Giacometti always reminds me of Francis Bacon, both obsessed with the fragility and distortion of the human form. But where Bacon is all visceral screams, Giacometti is a quiet hum of existential dread. It's like he's asking, how much can I strip away and still have a person? Art isn't about answers, it's about the questions we keep asking.