Two artists who won with "skinny"

 　　If Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero won with "fat" and was unique because of his unique "fat" style, then Swiss sculptor and painter Giacometti and German painter Penke did the opposite. Instead, winning by being "thin" reflects the disaster and pain of the contemporaries in World War II, as well as the mental depression and confusion brought to people during the Cold War, which deeply touched the hearts of the audience. , become a world-class artist.

　　Alberto Giacometti was born in the first year of the last century, when a great revolution was brewing in world art. Although his father was an accomplished Impressionist painter and longed to inherit his father's business, the trend of the times could not but leave a deep imprint on an artist's growth. Giacometti experienced the baptism of primitivism, cubism and surrealism in this revolution, and has achieved certain achievements in various aspects, and many works have been recorded in the annals of art history.

　　World War II broke out and Paris fell the following year. Heaven turned into hell in an instant. Artists in Paris were able to witness the suffering of the people under the fascist iron shoes. Hungry and bone-like pedestrians were everywhere. The sculptor himself also experienced a car accident, penniless and precarious. This is fully reflected in his "Hungry Dog". The sculptor wrote, not without self-deprecation, "This is me. One day I saw myself in the street. I looked like this dog. I was the dog." The dog that does not get up is undoubtedly the portrayal of the artist at that time. What a painful experience!

　　After the war, the displaced artist returned to Paris. Trials of war criminals at the International Court of Justice are about to begin. Exposing articles and pictures abound in newspapers and magazines. The painter Boris Tasritsky, who was tortured in the fascist concentration camps, created some oil paintings reflecting the life of prisoners based on his own memories, which shocked the sculptor a lot. They are full of ghosts and remind people of the Middle Ages. Relief of figures in hell. All these revelations of life opened up new territories for Giacometti's work. With a painful and even neurotic mood, he successively completed a series of works on thin human bodies, which were exhibited in New York in 1948, which deeply touched the injured hearts of the vast audience. , so that he entered the ranks of masters.

　　"Fall" is a character who is as weak as a "hungry dog" and can't even stand. He was so skinny that only a layer of skin that seemed to scorched his skeleton was full of pits. He didn't know if it was because of hunger, or if he just got off the fascist torture device, looked up at the sky, his limbs were weak, and his right hand seemed to be trying to grasp something in front of him, maybe it was the thin hand that was about to rot in "Hand". Open five fingers, stretch out in front of the audience, as if to say: "No", no war, no fascism, no hunger and death... The imagination is endless. But the image is very weak and pitiful, which reflects the psychological fear and loneliness of people after the war. It is no wonder that some people call Giacometti "the artist who is best at expressing human beings in the middle of the twentieth century."

　　

　　Penck, whose real name was Ralph Winklei, was born in 1939 in Dresden, which was assigned to East Germany after the war. In terms of culture and art, it is a metropolis second only to the capital Berlin, with world-famous cathedrals and museums, known as "Florence on the Elbe." Unfortunately, most of the buildings were reduced to ashes during World War II. Many of the painter's relatives and friends also became innocent victims. And he himself witnessed the whole process of the disaster. Therefore, in his later recollection, he wrote: "I saw the city burning in the fire... I felt that this was a corrupt system of cannibalism, the destruction and disaster brought to mankind through the dehumanizing war. This is the most memorable of my childhood. It's a big event." After the war, he should have devoted himself to production and construction, rebuilding his homeland, but unfortunately ushered in the Cold War period again. The superpowers have divided the world into two camps in order to dominate. Germany was then divided into two countries, east and west. From then on, the brothers are against the wall, and the country has no peace. This left a great wound in the painter's heart. He is eager to change this unreasonable state as soon as possible. At that time, there was a scholar named Penke (1884-1945), who was famous for his research on the human ice age. The painter wanted to be able to explore and express this cold Cold War era with painting just like him, so he changed his name to Penke.

　　East Germany was a relatively ideologically controlled country. Penke's objective and neutral thinking will of course be accused of being "bourgeois" and "decadent". In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, the painter decided to use abstract or stick figures to paint.

　　"A·B" was made in 1965. The screen is full of some scrawny stick figures. Some say it was influenced by Giacometti. But more like a cartoon. The painting depicts a strange man with two heads, two backs and four hands. He spread his legs apart and straddled what seemed to be huge rocks. The freaks stood opposite each other, each holding a placard with the words "A·B" on it. They were preaching something to the little stick figures under their feet.

　　It is not difficult to understand that the two separate giant rocks represent East and West Germany. The double-headed man straddling the rock symbolizes the leadership of the two German authorities. They each have different political views and beliefs. Books have "A·B" mission cards, possibly alluding to their basic principles of creed. The figure on the left may represent the left. On the far left stands a tall, trance-like giant, possibly a worshipped god or idol. The two little figures in front of him, apparently roused by the preaching of the big man (erect genitals), raised their hands in support, and raised their cross to show their conversion. The big man on the right also has three little people under his feet. The first one is an ordinary laborer carrying a hoe or axe. He was lackluster and had a feeling of being coerced. The middle one has an educated look (high genitals), holds the flag high, holds his head high, and moves forward with great determination. The last held their rifles high and followed the flag, but the abyss was in front of them.

　　Painted in the World in 1961, the events took place on a curved piece of land overgrown with weeds. It represents a part of the earth. The two little people in the middle are pointing fingers and accusing each other. The two larger figures in the back even used force to meet each other. The big man on the left pointed a gun at each other in one hand, and held up a strange new weapon in the other, as if to blackmail. Young people who only know how to play ball, dance and have fun, are also enlightened by the education of big men. They stooped down one after another in submission, appearing to sign on the table. Not to be outdone, the stick-type figure on the right also took out his own secret weapon and aimed at the other side. The war was about to break out. One of the characters below him is conducting propaganda, the other is threatening with a gun, using both civil and military. The little people either raised their hands in agreement, or bent over to obey, bending down to push the two-wheeled chariot. This chariot seems to have been seen in Giacometti's work, thus vividly showing the cold war scene of the two camps. All of these are not unfamiliar to us, although today is a thing of the past.