The quest for the absolute. Giacometti, Sartre and the art

This paper is a study over the sculptures and paintings of the swiss artist Alberto Giacometti after 1945 and how he himself and Jean-Paul Sartre describe the influences and meanings of this art. The paper describes the political and resistent movements in Paris during the german occupation and after the war and the intellectual society and milieu of philosophers, writers, artist, gallerists and publishers who met at the cafés of Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Près during the existentialistic movement that Giacometti and Sartre were a part of. It also analyses the homogenous group of intellectuals according to Pierre Bourdieus cultural sociological view. The paper also gives a study of the existential thinking according to Sartre which dominated in Paris after the war. The analyses that Sartre and Giacometti make about the art of Giacometti reflect the difference between the theoretical view of the existentialistic philosopher Sartre and the artist Giacomettis practical and pragmatical view. It also describes the discourse of the inexhaustible artwork according to Bourdieu in the view of how the interpretation of works of art can change over time. The paper concludes with a chapter where an attempt is made to examine what distinguish and reconcile Sartre and Giacometti in the comprehension of Giacomettis art in the ambition to widen and nuance the understanding of Giacomettis art