Giacometti

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-giacometti-alberto.htm

"In the late 1930s, Giacometti abandoned abstraction and Surrealism, becoming more interested in how to represent the human figure in a convincing illusion of real space. He wanted to depict figures in such a way as to capture a palpable sense of spatial distance, so that we, as viewers, might share in the artist's own sense of distance from his model, or from the encounter that inspired the work. The solution he arrived at involved whittling the figures down to the slenderest proportions."

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/26853731/distance-detail-apprehension-reality-sculpture-alberto-giacometti

I haven't read above though......

Modern Distance begins from Giacometti in a sense.