“Between 1956 and 1961, Giacometti made over a dozen oil portraits and one sculpture of Japanese philosopher Isaku Yanaihara. Yanaihara interviewed Giacometti for a Japanese magazine in 1955, instigating a long friendship based on their shared interest in existentialist philosophy. The second in the group, this painting features the seated figure suffused in glowing electric light. It is less a physical portrait and more an apparition; as Giacometti said, “I am not attempting likeness, but resemblance.”