“The form is always in proportion to the obsession,” said the artist Alberto Giacometti. His particular obsession was the female nude, but stripped of her fetching curves and traditional languor. Giacometti’s woman stood fully frontal, with feet pressed together, limbs and spine completely vertical. Something of the Egyptian totem, the Greek kouros, adheres in the pose. But the lack of movement, its fixity, suggests a stunning moment, a long shadow. Eve after the fall? With drawings, paintings, and sculptures, “Narrating the Body” presents Giacometti’s developing perspective on the naked female. —L.J.