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PARTISAN REVIEW
works as we see them - or , in Becke tt's case, sometimes onl y hear
them - almost negate the ma teria l ex istence of their subj ects. They
are present a nd evocative through a nd by their s il ence or their
abse nce . This is especiall y a ppa re nt when we regard the means both
Beckett a nd Gi acometti used to deal with the presence of
remembered events, sights, a nd fi gures.
Beckett could evoke these memo ries onl y by negating them , by
emphas izing the imposs ibility of remembering. The negation
became the gate to rev iving memory. The same is true about
G iacometti who, es pec ia ll y in his las t years, emphas ized the
importa nce of hi s ea rl y memories, but those memories a re present ,
again , by their absence. An exampl e is Gi acometti's story a bout the
girls he saw in Padua, when he was twe nty years old , a nd their
implied presence in severa l o f hi s la tes t compos itions of groups of
girl s.
I do no t wish , or do not da re, to ove remphas ize the resembl ance
betwee n Beckett a nd G iacometti . Suffi ce it to say tha t both of them
struggled with simil a r problems a nd diffi culti es, thou gh in different
ways. Both reali zed tha t in the fin a l account there is
no
soluti on to
the problem o f the relation between reality a nd a rt a nd tha t , even so,
the onl y obliga ti on o f the a rti st is to go on , neve r to give up hi
search fo r a way to bridge the gap , to achieve the impo sible.
It
was not a me re acc ident tha t Gi acometti was the a rti st who
des igned the setting fo r Beckett's play
Wa iting for Codat
a t the Odeon
in 1953. Beckett ce rt a inl y could not have chose n a mo re suitable
a rti st to do the j ob . The se t was composed o f a lonely tree on an
empt y fl a t stage a nd a moon , a nd G iacome tti remembered how he
a nd Beckett expe rimented a ll ni ght long with whe re to put the tree,
a nd whethe r to ma ke it bi gge r or sma ll er , a nd it neve r seemed ri ght
to them.
We may imagine how these two a rti sts a rgued about the tree
a nd the moon without findin g a sati sfacto ry soluti on , a nd probabl y
ended the ni ght with the words, or the thought : a nd the res t is
sil e nce.
