Two Brothers, Four Hands

Jan Greenberg
Cheerleader for the Arts

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 Have you ever tried to learn to do something new, such as riding a two-wheeler bike? You practice for weeks. Then one day the wheels start turning, the bike stays upright with you on it and off you go whizzing down the street.

Two Brothers Four Hands tells the story of an artist named Alberto Giacometti (born 1901), and his younger brother Diego (1902) and their struggles to become artists. They grow up in a small Swiss village surrounded by mountains. Alberto likes to read or paint in his father's art studio; Diego spends his days roaming the mountains and observing the wildlife.
 
But despite their differences, the brothers form a deep bond. When they grow up, Diego moves to Paris to help Alberto with his artwork. Alberto labors tirelessly for years trying to express in painting and sculpture the way he sees the world, the way he feels in his heart. He sits at his easel day after day painting a portrait of his younger brother Diego only to destroy it and start again. When he makes sculpture, using plaster to model his brother’s face, he eventually whittles the plaster down to nothing. Patient Diego believes in his brother’s talent but even he gets frustrated.
 
During World War II, as most of Europe battles the German army, Alberto goes to Switzerland to be near their mother. Diego stays in Paris to guard Alberto’s studio. Diego learns to cast plaster molds into bronze and to paint the surfaces with colors of silver, green and gold. After the war, Alberto returns to Paris. Finally back in his familiar studio, he begins to make tall spindly sculptures that capture the spirit of the survivors of war-torn Europe. At the same time Diego begins to craft furniture adorned with the creatures he observed as a child - deer, foxes, turtles, and more. But he's so busy helping Alberto, who is now in great demand for exhibits in museums and galleries that he has to give up on his own work..  “Alberto is the artist. I am merely a craftsman,”  Diego often says.

After his brother dies, Diego starts handcrafting furniture and he, too, becomes a great success. His tables, chairs, and lamps are so magical that people forget their function and think of them as sculpture.
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Alberto’s friend the playwright Samuel Beckett once wrote, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Like learning to ride a bike, after trying and failing again, one day you just might get it right.

Artist Hadley Hooper portrayed the differences between the two brothers in this illustration from the book. Alberto is on the left an Diego is on the right.

Walking Man by Alberto Giacometti

Ostrich by Diego Giacometti

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The inspiring true story of the Giacometti brothers, one an artist, the other a daredevil, both devoted to their craft . . . but even more devoted to each other.
​You can read Vicki Cobb's review here.

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