Lot 301 Dα

Like portraits of family and friends, self-portraits were among the subjects frequently depicted in Giovanni Giacometti's oeuvre. In this painting the artist presents himself in a traditional three-quarter view. As in an “Autoritratto” (see Müller/Radlach 1916.02) created the same year, he has selected a location before a window, with the result that his head is set off by and strikingly emphasised by the intense light streaming in. The artist's studio apparently provides the spatial context: the painting that can be seen to the artist's left and which is apparently still in progress is an indication of this. It shows a bouquet of tulips in a tall vase and has been identified by Paul Müller and Viola Radlach as the still life “Tulipani” (ibid. 1916.56) - a “picture within a picture”, so to speak.
An intense palette of colours is characteristic of Giovanni Giacometti's work as a painter and also distinguishes this self-portrait. The painter's face is formed by a variety of alternating tones of violet and red and is developed solely out of colour, as though it had been modelled sculpturally. By contrast the upper body is invested with a compact cohesiveness through the bluish dark grey of the suit. The window in the background is divided up horizontally into the light orange of a curtain covering the lower half and the various nuances of the luminous green vegetation outside, which is visible above it. The red blossoms and the dark green stems of the depicted still life also set boldly coloured accents. The paint is applied in loose, generous brushstrokes and suggests a rapid and spontaneous manner of working.
Our painting particularly clearly illustrates the painter's fascination with light, especially sunlight and its effect on colours. “The 'aspiration to penetrate the essence of coloured light' was referred to by Giacometti as his primary artistic goal. This fascination determined his choice of motifs throughout his life. [...] Giacometti continued to express his interest in the manifestations of light in his repeated depictions of motifs lit from behind. [...] In his window images - for example, in the background of self-portraits or interior scenes - Giacometti is concerned not with a symbolic exaltation but with the optic-aesthetic phenomena of light and colour contrasts.” (Viola Radlach, Das Licht in der Malerei von Giovanni Giacometti, in: Giovanni Giacometti 1868-1933, exhib. cat. Kunstmuseum Winterthur et al. 1996/97, p. 219, p. 215)