Amedeo Modigliani is a representative of expressionism, an artist whose biography is comparable to a novel. The master's paintings inspire the public no less than a love story that made the painter an object of chanting in a creative environment. Modigliani had a unique authorial style and did not give up his vocation, despite the vicissitudes of fate. Fame came to the artist posthumously, and paintings today cost fabulous money.
Childhood and youth
Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno on July 12, 1884. His fate was partly a foregone conclusion. Amedeo's father is a famous Italian painter with Jewish roots. When the boy was a few years old, his father was overtaken by bankruptcy, and the mother took over the care of the upbringing and maintenance of the children. In the fourth, youngest, child, she doted on the soul. Amedeo's sickness added maternal care, and he responded to her affection, traditional for Jewish families.
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São PauloEugenia Modigliani, nee Garcin, had an excellent education and instilled in children a craving for knowledge. She knew several foreign languages, and translations became an additional income for the family. Noticing her son's penchant for the fine arts, the mother at first did not betray this significance. But at the age of 11, Amedeo fell ill with typhus and, in delirium, spoke only about painting. Evgenia made the only right choice. When Modigliani Jr. turned 14, he was sent to study with local artist Guglielmo Micheli.
Becoming the youngest among the students of the mentor, Amedeo quickly decided on the subjects that interested him. Portraits became the main direction of his work. In 1900, Modigliani contracted tuberculosis. To restore health, the mother took her son to the island of Capri, and the lessons were temporarily suspended.
Traveling around Italy, the boy got acquainted with the works of outstanding painters. He traveled to Rome and Florence. Here the aspiring artist entered the school of painting, and a year later he moved to Venice, where he became a student of the Free School of the Nude.
Artist Amedeo Modigliani / Wikipedia In 1906, with the help of his mother, Amedeo moved to Paris, which became the capital of the arts in those years. The public at that time was fond of cubism, so the works exhibited by Modigliani for sale were not in demand. Having settled in expensive apartments, the young man was soon forced to move out to a cheap rented apartment, where he painted paintings to order. In parallel, he took lessons at the Colarossi Academy of Painting.
The only source of income for Amedeo was the money sent by her mother. Often he had nothing to pay for accommodation, so he had to run away from rented apartments, leaving paintings as payment. But in the art world, he gradually won recognition, although this did not affect his financial condition.
Creation
In 1907, Amedeo Modigliani made his debut at the Salon d'Automne in Paris. A year later, his work was exhibited at the Salon of Independents. During these years, the artist developed his own style. He made friends with, painted their portraits and created the paintings "Jewish", "Cellist" and others.
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza In 1909, acquaintance with Constantin Brancusi makes Amedeo pay attention to sculpture. In the absence of money for materials, Modigliani steals sandstone and wood from construction sites. He had to leave his passion for this area of art because of sick lungs.
Modigliani's work is fraught with weaknesses that many artists are prone to. He loved hashish, and eventually became addicted to alcohol. Left in Paris in 1914, when men were called to the front of the First World War, the artist felt on the verge. The state of physical and mental health left much to be desired. Amedeo continued to write to order, but critics still did not want to see talent in him.
Modigliani's works bear the imprint of a unique author's style. The people he depicts seem to have a flat mask instead of a face, behind which individuality is hidden. To see it, it is worth stopping by the picture. In the late period of creativity, the master added roundness to elongated ovals of faces.
Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo , Statens Museum for Kunst Working not with space, but with nature, Modigliani created sad, touching images and was fond of visualizing nudes, combining the harmony of color and line. The most famous works of the author in this direction were “Nude sitting on a sofa” and “Reclining nude with a blue pillow”.
The works "Portrait of Zborovsky", "Alice" were made in the same style. The author neglected the ratio of proportions for the sake of the internal mood of the character. The artist often depicted children and adolescents with melancholy sadness on their faces. Vivid examples of such works are "Portrait of a Girl", "Girl in Blue", "Little Peasant".
Norton Simon Museum The inspiration for the master was brought by the feelings he experienced. He repeatedly depicted the main love of his life, Jeanne Hebuterne, on canvases. One of the last works of the painter was the painting "Jeanne Hebuterne in a red shawl." On it, the beloved of the master is depicted in anticipation of a second child. In the works dedicated to her, a high degree of sensuality, admiration for the model and love are conveyed.
Fortune smiled at Modigliani before dying. His work finally attracted the attention of critics, who began to call the author "an aspiring artist, budding". Amedeo Modigliani was 35 at the time.
Personal life
When considering Modigliani's self-portrait, it is difficult to say whether the author was good-looking. But the surviving photos confirm that it could not be otherwise. An attractive man enjoyed the attention of ladies, and his personal life was always shrouded in a romantic veil. Despite his poverty, Modigliani was incredibly clean and elegant. A refined artist with a sketchbook in his hands attracted the eyes of beauties, and his charm did not leave any heart calm. Independent and unrecognized, Modigliani attracted many.
Museum of Anna Akhmatova in the Fountain House One of the high-profile novels, which society learned about much later than its completion, was an alliance with. The mutual attraction that arose between them was accompanied by the creation of portraits of the poetess, who arrived in Paris with her husband. Amedeo created several canvases inspired by the image of Anna, among them sketches of the nude, although Akhmatova denied that they were written from her. Most of the images of the poetess were lost when sent to Russia, but she lovingly kept one portrait for many years.
In 1914, Modigliani met the journalist Beatrice Hastings. All Parisian society witnessed their rapidly developing relationship. Jealousy, flirting, beatings and betrayals accompanied this novel. Beatrice tried to rid Amedeo of addictions, but they turned out to be stronger. After 2 years of crises and reconciliations, Hastings left Modigliani.
Wikipedia 1917 was a turning point for the artist. He met a young student, Jeanne Hebuterne. The painter's museum was 19 years old, and she became his most faithful friend. The feelings of the lovers were not disturbed by the protests of the girl's parents, who did not want their daughter to become the wife of a beggar artist leading a wild life.
A year after they met, the couple moved to Nice. The local climate was good for Amedeo's failing health, but the last stages of tuberculosis were untreatable. In the same year, the lovers had a daughter. Joyful father made Jeanne an offer to become his wife. During this period, the public became interested in the artist's work, and it seemed that this story would have a happy ending. In 1919 the couple returned to Paris, but the artist's days were numbered. He lived for 7 months and died in a hospital for the homeless.
Death
Poor health accompanied Modigliani all his life. He attributed it to poor health as a child, and later to the influence of alcohol. It was impossible to talk about tuberculosis - otherwise he would have to step back from society. The disease caused the death of the artist. On January 24, 1920, Amedeo Modigliani died of tuberculous meningitis.
At that moment, his beloved was expecting a second child. Not wanting to live without Modigliani, she said goodbye to life by throwing herself from the 6th floor. Modigliani's death shocked all of Paris. He was accompanied on his last journey by numerous friends.
Wikipedia Jeanne was buried in a modest grave away from her named spouse. Only 10 years later, her relatives allowed her ashes to be transferred to Modigliani's grave, reuniting the lovers.
In addition to his daughter Jeanne, Amedeo Modigliani had no children. She devoted herself to studying her father's work. 2 years after the death of Amedeo, his work skyrocketed in price, and the master himself was already called great.
In 2004, inspired by the artist's biography, director Michael Davis made a biopic about Modigliani's life and work.
Paintings
- 1909 - "The Beggar of Livorno"
- 1914 - "Portrait of Diego Rivera"
- 1915 - "Portrait of Pablo Picasso"
- 1915 - "Antonia"
- 1916 - "Bride and Groom"
- 1917 - "Nude on a blue pillow"
- 1917 - "Red-haired woman"
- 1918 - "Alice"
- 1918 - "The Girl in Blue"
- 1919 - "The Singer from Nice"
This unrecognized genius died in dire poverty, and now for his paintings at auctions lay out a fortune. The name of the scandalous artist, about whom one of his colleagues said that "the original painter was a star boy, and for him reality did not exist," is shrouded in legends. The work of the great creator, who did nothing for show, cannot be placed within the framework of one artistic direction.
Amedeo Modigliani: a short biography
The Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno in 1884 into a Jewish family. His father declares himself bankrupt, and the boy's mother, who received an excellent education, becomes the head of the family in difficult times. Possessing a strong character and unbending will, a woman who knows several languages perfectly earns money by translating. The youngest son Amedeo is a very beautiful and sickly child, and Eugenia Modigliani does not have a soul in her baby.
The boy is strongly attached to his mother, who quickly recognizes his ability to draw. She sends her 14-year-old son to the local artist Micheli's school. A teenager, who by that time had received a versatile education, forgets about everything, he only does what he draws for days, completely surrendering to his passion.
Acquaintance with the masterpieces of world art
A frequently ill boy, who was also diagnosed with tuberculosis, was taken by his mother to the island of Capri in 1900 to improve his health. Amedeo Modigliani, who visited Rome, Venice, Florence, gets acquainted with the greatest masterpieces of world art and mentions in his letters that "beautiful images have disturbed his imagination ever since." The recognized Italian masters, including Botticelli, became the teachers of the young painter. Later, the artist, who dreams of devoting his life to art, will resurrect the refinement and lyricism of their images in his works.
Two years later, the young man moved to Florence and entered the school of painting, and later continued his studies in Venice, where, according to researchers of the genius, he became addicted to hashish. The young man develops an individual style of writing, which is fundamentally different from the existing artistic trends.
Bohemian life in Paris
A few years later, Amedeo Modigliani, who lost his inspiration in Italy, thinks about the bohemian life in France. He longs for freedom, and his mother helps her beloved son move to Paris to Montmartre and supports all his creative pursuits. Since 1906, Modi, as the artist's new friends call him (by the way, the word maudit is translated from French as "damned"), enjoys the special spirit of the city. A handsome painter, who has no end to fans, does not have enough money.
He wanders around the cheapest furnished rooms, drinks a lot and tries drugs. However, everyone notes that the artist, addicted to alcohol, has a special love for cleanliness, and he washes his only shirt every day. No one could compete in terms of elegance with the irresistible Amedeo Modigliani. Photos of the artist, which have survived to this day, perfectly convey his amazing beauty and sophistication. All the ladies go crazy at the sight of a tall painter dressed in a velor suit walking along the street with a sketchbook at the ready. And none of them could resist the charm of the poor master.
Many mistake him for an Italian, but Modigliani, who opposes anti-Semites, does not hide the fact that he is a Jew. An independent person who considers himself an outcast in society does not mislead anyone.
Unrecognized genius
In France, Amedeo is looking for his style, paints, and treats new friends in bars with the proceeds from their sale. For three years spent in Paris, Modigliani does not receive recognition from viewers and critics, although the artist's friends consider him an unrecognized genius.
In 1909, Amedeo Modigliani, whose biography is filled with dramatic events, meets the very eccentric sculptor Brancusi and is fond of working with stone. The young man does not have enough money for wood or sandstone for future masterpieces, and he steals the necessary material from the construction site of the city metro at night. Later, he quits sculpting because of a diseased lung.
Platonic romance with Akhmatova
A new period in the master's work begins after meeting A. Akhmatova, who arrived in Paris with her husband N. Gumilyov. Amedeo is fond of the poetess, calls her the queen of Egypt and endlessly admires her talent. As Anna later admits, they were connected only by a platonic relationship, and this unusual romance energized two creative people. Inspired by a new feeling, an ardent man paints portraits of Akhmatova, which have not survived to this day.
Most of the works sent to Russia disappeared during the revolution. Anna had one portrait left, which she incredibly cherished and considered her main wealth. Recently, three surviving sketches of a naked poetess were found, although Akhmatova herself claimed that she never posed without clothes, and all of Modi's drawings are just his fantasy.
New relationship
In 1914, the artist Amedeo Modigliani met the English traveler, poetess, journalist B. Hastings, and all of Paris was watching the stormy showdown between the two people. The emancipated muse of a genius was a match for her beloved, and after violent quarrels, insults, scandals that shook the city, a truce follows. An emotional painter is jealous of his girlfriend, beats, suspecting flirting and betrayal. He drags her by the hair and even throws the woman out of the window. Beatrice tries to rid her lover of addictions, but she is not very good at it. Tired of endless quarrels, the journalist leaves Modigliani two years later, who wrote his best works during this period. They never saw each other again.
The main love of the painter's life
In 1917, the scandalous artist met a 19-year-old student Jeanne, who became his favorite model, muse and most devoted friend. The lovers settle down together, despite protests from the girl's parents, who do not want to see a riotous Jew as their son-in-law. In 1918, the couple moved to Nice, where a comfortable climate favorably affects the health of the master, undermined by alcohol and drugs, but neglected tuberculosis is no longer amenable to treatment. In the fall, happy Amedeo Modigliani and Jeanne Hebuterne become parents, and the painter in love invites his girlfriend to register a marriage, but a rapidly developing illness ruins all plans.
At this time, the artist's agent arranges exhibitions and sells paintings, and interest in the work of a brilliant creator increases along with the prices of works of art. In May 1919, the young parents returned to Paris. Modi is very weak, and seven months later he dies in a hospital for the homeless in absolute poverty. Upon learning of the death of her beloved, Jeanne, who is expecting her second child, is thrown from the sixth floor. Life without Amedeo seems meaningless to her, and Hebuterne dreams of joining him in order to enjoy eternal bliss in another world. The girl carried her love to the last breath, and in the most difficult moments it was she who was the only support for her beloved rebel and was his faithful guardian angel.
The whole of Paris saw off the artist on his last journey, and his beloved, whom the bohemian circle recognized as his wife, was modestly buried the next day. Ten years later, Jeanne's family agreed to transfer her ashes to the grave of Amedeo Modigliani, so that the souls of the lovers would finally find peace.
Daughter Jeanne, named after her mother, died in 1984. She devoted her life to studying the creativity of her parents.
Man is the whole world
The artist does not want to know anything except the person himself, whose personality is his only source of inspiration. He does not paint still lifes and landscapes, but turns to portraiture. Abstracted from the realities of life, the creator works day and night, for which he receives the nickname "lunatic". Living in his own world, he does not notice what is happening outside the window and does not follow how time passes. Not at all like the rest, Amedeo Modigliani, who admires the bodily beauty, sees people. The works of the master confirm this: on his canvases, all the characters are like the ancient gods. The artist declares that "man is a whole world that is worth many worlds."
On his canvases live not only heroes immersed in quiet sadness, but also their pronounced characters. The artist, who often pays with pencil sketches for food, allows his models to look into the eyes of the creator, as if into a camera lens. He paints familiar people, children on the streets, models, and he is not in the least interested in nature. It is in the portrait genre that the author develops an individual style of writing, his own canon of painting. And when he finds it, he no longer changes it.
Unique Talent
The Creator admires the naked female body and finds harmony between it and the quivering soul of the heroines. Graceful silhouettes, according to the researchers of his work, look like "fragments of a fresco, written not from certain models, but as if synthesized from other models." Amedeo Modigliani first of all sees in them his ideal of femininity, and his canvases live in space according to their own laws. The works glorifying the beauty of the human body become famous after the death of the master, and collectors from all over the world begin to hunt for his canvases, on which people have unthinkably elongated heads and long necks of an ideal shape.
According to art historians, such elongated faces appeared from African plastics.
Own vision of the heroes of the paintings
Amedeo Modigliani, whose works cannot be viewed briefly, pays close attention to characteristic faces that at first glance resemble a flat mask. The more you peer into the master's canvases, the more clearly you understand that all his models are individual.
Many portraits of a genius creating his own world are sculptural, it is clear that the master carefully works out the silhouette. In later works, the painter adds roundness to elongated faces, tints the cheeks of the heroines with pink. This is a typical move of a real sculptor.
Amedeo Modigliani, unrecognized during his lifetime, whose photographs of his paintings convey his unique talent, paints portraits that do not at all look like a reflection in a mirror. They convey the inner feelings of the master, who does not play with space. The author strongly stylizes nature, but he grasps something elusive. A talented master does not just copy the features of the models, he compares them with his inner instinct. The painter sees images covered with sadness and uses sophisticated stylization. Sculptural integrity is combined with the harmony of line and color, and the space is pressed into the plane of the canvas.
Amedeo Modigliani: works
The paintings, created without a single correction and impressing with the accuracy of forms, are dictated by nature. He sees his poet friend immersed in dreams ("Portrait of Zborovsky"), and his colleague - impulsive and open to all people ("Portrait of Soutine").
On the canvas "Alice" we see a girl with a face resembling an African mask. Adoring elongated forms, Modigliani draws an elongated silhouette, and it is clear that the proportions of the heroine are far from classical. The author conveys the inner state of the young creature, in whose eyes one can read detachment and coldness. It can be seen that the master sympathizes with the serious girl beyond her years, and the audience feels the warm attitude of the painter towards her. He often draws children and teenagers, and his characters are reminiscent of the works of Dostoevsky, which Amedeo Modigliani used to read.
Paintings with the names "Nude", "Portrait of a Girl", "Lady with a Black Tie", "Girl in Blue", "Yellow Sweater", "Little Peasant" are known not only in Italy, but also in other countries. They feel compassion for the person, and each image is fraught with a special secret and amazing beauty. Not a single canvas can be called soulless.
"Jeanne Hebuterne in a red shawl" is one of the last works of the author. The woman who is expecting her second child is depicted with great love. Modigliani, who idolizes his beloved, sympathizes with her desire to isolate herself from the unfriendly outside world, and the spirituality of the image in this work reaches unprecedented heights. Amedeo Modigliani, whose work is covered in the article, penetrates the very essence of human experiences, and his Jeanne, who seems defenseless and doomed, humbly accepts all the blows of fate.
The incredibly lonely genius, unfortunately, became famous only after his death, and his priceless works, which he often gave away to passers-by, gained worldwide fame.
The biography of Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) is like a novel about a classical genius.
Life is short as a flash. Early death. The deafening posthumous glory that overtook him literally on the day of the funeral.
The price of the paintings that the artist left as payment for lunch in a cafe overnight reaches tens of millions of dollars!
And also the love of a lifetime. A beautiful young girl who looks like Princess Rapunzel. And the tragedy is worse than the story of Romeo and Juliet.
If it wasn't all true, I would have snorted: “Oh, this does not happen in life! Too twisted. Too emotional. Too tragic."
But everything happens in life. And this is just about Modigliani.
Unique Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani. Red-haired woman. 1917. Washington National Gallery. Modigliani is mysterious to me like no other artist. For one simple reason. How did he manage to create almost all of his works in the same style, and so unique?
He worked in Paris, talked with Picasso,. I saw the work and. But he did not fall under anyone's influence.
It seems that he was born and lived on a desert island. And there he wrote all his works. Unless I saw African masks. Also, maybe a couple of works by Cezanne and El Greco. And the rest of his painting has almost no impurities.
If you look at the early works of any artist, you will understand that at first he was looking for himself. Modigliani's contemporaries often started with . How or . And even .
Left: Edvard Munch, Rue Lafayette, 1901. Oslo National Gallery, Norway. Right: Pablo Picasso, Bullfighting, 1901. Private collection. Bottom: Kazimir Malevich, Spring, apple tree in bloom, 1904. Tretyakov Gallery.
Sculpture and El Greco
In Modigliani, you will not find this period of searching for yourself. True, his painting changed a little after he had been sculpting for 5 years.
Amedeo Modigliani. Woman's head. 1911. Washington National Gallery. Here are two works created before and after the sculptural period.
It is immediately evident how much Modigliani's sculpture transfers into painting. His famous elongation also appears. And a long neck. And deliberately sketchy.
He really wanted to continue sculpting. But since childhood, he had sick lungs: tuberculosis returned time after time. And stone and marble chips aggravated his illness.
Therefore, after 5 years, he returned to painting.
I would also venture to look for a link between the works of Modigliani and the works of El Greco. And it's not just about the elongation of faces and figures.
El Greco. Saint James. 1608-1614. Prado Museum, Madrid. For El Greco, the body is a thin shell through which the human soul shines through.
Amedeo followed the same path. After all, the people in his portraits bear little resemblance to real ones. Rather, it conveys character, soul. Adding something that a person did not see in the mirror. For example, asymmetry of the face and body.
This can also be seen in Cezanne. He also often made the eyes of his characters different. Look at the portrait of his wife. We seem to read in her eyes: “What did you come up with again? You make me sit here with a stump ... "
Paul Cezanne. Madame Cezanne in a yellow chair. 1890. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Portraits of Modigliani
Modigliani painted people. Completely ignored still lifes. His landscapes are extremely rare.
Andrey Allahverdov. Amedeo Modigliani. 2015. Collection of the artist. He has many portraits of friends and acquaintances from his entourage. They all lived, worked and played in the Montparnasse district of Paris. Here, impoverished artists rented the cheapest housing and went to the nearest cafes. Alcohol, hashish, festivities until the morning.
Amedeo especially took care of the unsociable and sensitive Chaim Soutine. A slovenly, reserved and very original artist: his whole essence is before us.
Eyes looking in different directions, crooked nose, different shoulders. And also the color scheme: brown-gray-blue. Table with very long legs. And a tiny glass.
In all this one reads loneliness, inability to live. Well, truthfully, without flattery.
Amedeo Modigliani. Portrait of Chaim Soutine. 1917. Washington National Gallery. Amedeo wrote not only friends, but also unfamiliar people.
He does not have a predominance of one emotion. Like, to make fun of - so everyone. To be touched - so by everyone.
Here, over this couple, he is clearly ironic. A gentleman in years marries a girl of humble birth. For her, this marriage is an opportunity to solve financial problems.
Amedeo Modigliani. Bride and groom. 1916. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The fox slit of sly eyes and slightly vulgar earrings help to read her nature. And what about the groom, do you know?
Here he has a collar on one side raised, on the other - lowered. He does not want to think sensibly next to the bride full of youth.
But the artist infinitely regrets this girl. The combination of her open look, folded arms and slightly clumsy legs tells us about extreme naivety and defenselessness.
Well, how not to feel sorry for such a child!
Amedeo Modigliani. Girl in blue. 1918. Private collection. As you can see, each portrait is a whole world of people. Reading their characters, we can even guess their fate. For example, the fate of Chaim Soutine.
Alas, although he will wait for recognition, but being already very sick. Failure to take care of himself will lead him to stomach ulcers and extreme emaciation.
And worries about Nazi persecution during the war will drive him to the grave.
But Amedeo will not know about this: he will die 20 years earlier than his friend.
Women of Modigliani
Modigliani was a very attractive man. An Italian of Jewish origin, he was charming and sociable. Women, of course, could not resist.
He had many. Including he is credited with a short affair with Anna Akhmatova. 
She denied it for the rest of her life. Many of Amedeo's drawings presented to her with her image simply disappeared. Because they were in Nu style?
But some still survived. And according to them, we assume that these people had closeness.
But the main woman in Modigliani's life was Jeanne Hebuterne. She was madly in love with him. He also had tender feelings for her. So tender that he was ready to marry.
He also painted dozens of her portraits. And among them, not a single Nu.
I call her Princess Rapunzel because she had very long and thick hair. And as is usually the case with Modigliani, her portraits are not very similar to the real image. But her character is readable. Calm, reasonable, infinitely loving.
Left: Photograph by Jeanne Hebuterne. Right: Portrait of a girl (Jeanne Hebuterne) Modigliani, 1917.
Amedeo, although he was the soul of the company, behaved somewhat differently with loved ones. Drinking, hashish - that's half the battle. He could flare up when drunk.
Zhanna easily coped with this, calming her angry lover with her words and gestures.
And here is her last portrait. She is pregnant with her second child. Which, alas, was not destined to be born.
Amedeo Modigliani. Jeanne Hebuterne seated in front of the door. 1919. Returning from a cafe drunk with friends, Modigliani unbuttoned his coat. And got a cold. His lungs, weakened by tuberculosis, could not stand it - he died the next day from meningitis.
And Jeanne was too young and in love. She didn't give herself time to recover from the loss. Unable to bear the eternal separation from Modigliani, she jumped out the window. Being in the ninth month of pregnancy.
Their first daughter was taken in by Sister Modigliani. Growing up, she became her father's biographer.
Nu Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani. Unfolded Nude. 1917. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Most Nu Modigliani created in 1917-18. It was an order from an art dealer. Such works were bought well, especially after the death of the artist.
So most of them are still in private collections. I managed to find one in the Metropolitan Museum (New York).
See how the body of the model is cut off by the edges of the picture in the area of the elbows and knees. So the artist brings her closer to the viewer. She enters his personal space. Yes, no wonder that such works are well bought.
In 1917, an art dealer put on an exhibition of these nudes. But an hour later it was closed, considering Modigliani's work indecent.
Amedeo Modigliani. Reclining Nude. 1917. Private collection. What? And this is in 1918? When nudes were written by everyone and sundry?
Yes, we wrote a lot. But ideal and abstract women. And this means the presence of one important detail - smooth armpits without hair. Yes, that's what the cops were confused about.
So the lack of hair removal turned out to be the main sign of whether the model is a goddess or a real woman. Is it worthy to be shown to the public or should it be removed from sight.
Modigliani is unique even after death
Modigliani is the most copied artist in the world. For every original, there are 3 fakes! This is a unique situation.
How did it happen?
It's all about the life of an artist. He was very poor. And as I already wrote, he often paid with paintings for lunches in cafes. I did the same, you say.
But the latter kept a thorough correspondence with his brother. It was from the letters that a complete catalog of Van Gogh's originals was compiled.
But Modigliani did not record his work. And he became famous on the day of his funeral. Unscrupulous art dealers took advantage of this, and an avalanche of fakes flooded the market.
And there were several such waves, as soon as the prices of Modigliani's paintings jumped once again.
Unknown artist. Marie. Private collection (the painting was shown as a work by Modigliani at an exhibition in Genoa in 2017, during which it was recognized as a fake). Until now, there is not a single reliable catalog of the works of this brilliant artist.
Therefore, the situation with the exhibition in Genoa (2017), when most of the master's works turned out to be fake, is far from the last.
We can only rely on our intuition when we look at his work at exhibitions ...
In contact with
Late at night, Modigliani and Jeanne Hebuterne walked along the fence of the Luxembourg Gardens. Suddenly, some kind of inhuman scream escaped from his chest, reminiscent of the roar of a wounded beast. He rushed to Jeanne and shouted: “I want to live! Do you hear? I want to live!" started beating her. Then he grabbed her by the hair and pushed with all her might against the iron grating of the garden. Jeanne did not utter a single sound. Slightly recovering from the blow, she herself got up, went up to Modigliani and took his hand. His sudden fury had already melted like snow in the sun, and streams of tears streamed down his face. “I don’t want to die,” he said to Jeanne. “I don’t believe there is anything there.”
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920)
“Modi,” Jeanne said affectionately and very softly in a tone that persuades a stubborn child, “I have told you so many times about this. Why are you still doubting?" He trustingly clung to her, and after a couple of minutes, a strange couple disappeared around a bend in the road.Modigliani was dying. Recently, he has changed beyond recognition and has become like a ghost: bony as a skeleton, with a bluish complexion and shaking hands. Of course, it was no secret to anyone - there are no secrets in Montparnasse - that Modi had tuberculosis, but this disease haunted him from early youth, and he knew how to cope with it under much worse circumstances. Rumors have circulated in Paris that since Modi contacted Jeanne Hebuterne, she, like a vampire, has been sucking Modigliani's mighty life force out of him.
If not for this power, he would have died in one of the Parisian ditches thirteen years ago. Then, in the autumn of 1906, the spoiled dandy Amedeo, or at home Dedo, came to Paris, the offspring of a once prosperous, but now impoverished Jewish family from the Italian town of Livorno. A handsome young man with curly black hair, dressed in a strict dark suit with a hard collar, a buttoned waistcoat and a snow-white shirt with starched cuffs, at Montparnasse was at first mistaken for a stockbroker. Amedeo was extremely hurt by this, because the broker was actually his father Flaminio Modigliani, about which the young man did not want to talk about. He preferred to present himself as the son of a wealthy Roman banker and the great-grandson of Benedict Spinoza. (The maiden name of one of the great-grandmothers, apparently, was actually Spinoza. Which, in turn, gave reason to assume that there was a family connection with the great philosopher. Nothing more.)
1906
Amedeo fancied himself an artist from an early age - he studied painting a little in Florence and Venice, but he came to Paris in order to get acquainted with new art and, of course, become famous. Few of the emerging artists were as confident in their talent as this handsome Italian. However, Montparnasse was teeming with unrecognized geniuses like him, who came here from all over the world.It turned out that in order to be an artist in Paris, you need not so much to be able to draw, but to be able to lead a very special life. A miserable shed made of wooden boards and sheets of tin - this was Amedeo's first dwelling. The walls are hung with drawings and sketches, furniture made of two wicker chairs with broken legs found on the street. A rag thrown in a corner served as a bed, an overturned box served as a table. Amedeo enthusiastically settled into a new apartment, in the end, the main thing is that he is now in Paris, and very soon he will become famous and then he will find something decent for himself, and this shack will be turned into a museum. Amedeo knew that there was nothing to count on the help of the family - his father left them long ago, and the money that his mother sent him was barely enough for canvases and paints. In addition, Modigliani's living conditions were generally normal for Montparnasse. Picasso's nearby workshop, for example, was not much more luxurious.
Eugenia Garcin and Flaminio Modigliani, in the year Amedeo was born, 1884
Amadeo with his mother, Eugenia Garcin, 1886
Eugenia Garsen 1925
In Livorno, Amedeo was used to communicating with clean, well-mannered young men from good families, he immediately had to make acquaintance with a very strange audience: the Parisian artistic bohemian consisted mostly of homosexuals, drug addicts, gigolos, religious fanatics of all directions, cabalists, mystics and just crazy. Furious disputes about art, which usually began in Picasso's workshop, were transferred to the famous Rotunda cafe, where the enthusiasm of the debaters was fueled by horse doses of alcohol and hashish.Once, on Christmas Eve, Modigliani dressed up as Santa Claus and handed out hashish lozenges for free at the entrance to the Rotunda Cafe. Unaware of the presence of a "secret filling", cafe visitors swallowed them with pleasure. That evening, the intoxicated bohemians almost smashed the Rotunda: representatives of the highest creative circles of Paris smashed lamps, doused the ceiling and walls with rum.
The famous "Rotonda" where Amedeo Modigliani was a regular
Modigliani soon became just Modi and every dog in the area already knew him. (Modi, as friends and colleagues often called him, is phonetically the same as the French word maudit, which means "damned" in translation). Since no one was willing to give a centime for his drawings, Modi soon had nothing to pay even for a shack. Sometimes he spent his nights under a table in a tavern, sometimes on a park bench, and then settled himself in an abandoned monastery behind the Place Blanche, where he liked to work at night with the booming accompaniment of the wind rushing through the eye sockets of the windows.Modi had his own quirks, for which, by the way, many in Montparnasse respected him: for example, he preferred to starve, but flatly refused, unlike others, to do work only for the sake of money - for example, to paint signs. He was a great maximalist and did not want to squander his talent. More than once, his comrades persuaded him to use a simple and reliable way to fill his stomach early in the morning, under the doors of wealthy townspeople, peddlers left their goods - buns, bacon, milk, coffee. A little dexterity and skill - and you are provided with a delicious breakfast. However, the proud and scrupulous Modigliani never agreed to participate in this.
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) "Woman's head with beauty spot" 1906
Why was he in such need? His paintings among artists were considered "daubs", no one took them seriously. Offended by this attitude, Modigliani stopped going to Picasso and gradually moved away from his circle, especially since he was almost not interested in avant-garde art. In splendid solitude, he tried to give form on canvas or paper to what he vaguely felt, but did not yet know how to express.Instead of the coveted glory, this Italian Jew, handsome as an ancient god, is picturesque, and very soon acquired the fame of the first lover in Montparnasse. The paradox was that poor Modi wasn't really interested in women at all. He was by no means homosexual. but he looked at young ladies only as more or less successful natures.
Every one of his models stayed in his bed - prostitutes, maids, flower girls, laundresses. To offer a model to share a bed with him after a posing session was for Modigliani the same act of courtesy as a bourgeois to offer tea to guests, and meant exactly the same - no more, no less. He wanted not to enjoy, but to embody. He was looking for his painting material. However, women did not enter into all these subtleties and took his gallantry at face value. That is, for love, or at least for falling in love.
In the summer of 1910, newlyweds Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev arrived in Paris. Akhmatova was captivated by this "landmark of Montparnasse" at first sight. Modigliani seemed to her the most picturesque man she had ever seen: that day he was dressed in yellow corduroy trousers and a loose jacket of the same color. Instead of a tie - a bright orange silk bow, around the waist - a fiery red scarf. Running past with his invariable blue folder with drawings, Modigliani also fixed his eyes on the elegant Russian. “A very, very curious nature,” he thought, and smiling broadly, he winked conspiratorially at the girl, then plucked a flower from the flower bed and threw it at her feet. Gumilyov was standing next to Anna, but he only shrugged his shoulders: he knew that here, in Montparnasse, the laws of generally accepted morality are being canceled.
Anna Akhmatova in a drawing by Modigliani 1911
Modi never focused on women, they entered his life and left it, leaving his heart untouched: Madeleine, Natalie, Elvira, Anna, Marie - an endless string of beauties, whose charms he immortalized with his canvases. With one of them, the English journalist Beatrice Hastings, Modigliani managed to live for two whole turbulent years, but in her he saw more of "his boyfriend" than his mistress. They drank together, rioted, fought and pulled out each other's hair. And when Beatrice said that she had had enough of "all this exoticism," Modi was not very upset.
Beatrice Hastings
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) "Portrait of Beatrice Hastings"
Once Modigliani confessed to his bosom friend, the sculptor Brancusi, that "waiting for a single woman who will become his eternal true love and who often comes to him in a dream." And right there, on a dirty napkin that came under his arm, he sketched a portrait of that “one and only”. Brancusi remembered only that she had straight long hair.Despite the hectic life and poor health, Modigliani's energy was in full swing: he sometimes managed to paint several paintings a day, used such explosive mixtures of hashish with alcohol that they knocked down other healthy people, participated in all kinds of carnivals, amusements, tomfoolery - in a word lived to the fullest. He never ran out of enthusiasm and hope that he was about to be noticed, appreciated, discovered ... After all, in the end, even the arrogant Picasso admitted that Modi had talent. Over time, Modigliani even got his own agent - the Pole Zborowski, who began to find buyers for his paintings. And suddenly, overnight, something seemed to break in Modi: a girl with long straight hair appeared on the horizon ...
For the first time he saw her all in the same "Rotonde", where 19-year-old Jeanne Hebuterne, a student at the Colarossi Art Academy, somehow wandered with her friend to drink an aperitif. Modigliani, who, as usual, occupied his favorite place at the bar, noticed a new face, fixed his eyes on him and studied him intently for a long time.
This is how she saw herself before meeting Amadeo.
(self-portrait painted by Jeanne in 1916)
And this is how Amadeo saw:
“Sit like this,” after a few minutes he turned to Jeanne and immediately began to sketch her portrait on a piece of paper. That same night, they left the restaurant embracing - and so began one of the strangest love stories in Montparnasse. The day after they met, wherever Modi managed to wander during the day to have a drink - at the Rotunda, at Rosalie's, at the Agile Rabbit - he gave the impression of a completely crazy person. His eyes sparkled with excitement, he could not sit still, and every now and then jumped up from his chair and cried out: “No, you listen!” Friends looked at each other in surprise: what happened to Modi? “I met the woman from my dreams! It's definitely her! - the artist repeated every now and then, as if someone objected to him. “I can prove to you: I have her portraits - an amazing resemblance!” Friends reacted to these speeches with cheerful laughter - of course, no one doubted that Modi was so sharp. In Montparnasse, it is not customary to talk seriously about eternal love. It's tasteless, bourgeois, and everyone is sick of it.However, Jeanne really turned out to be Modigliani's woman, his ideal type. And he, of course, understood this at a glance. She did not need to artificially lengthen the neck and oval of the face, which did it when painting portraits of other women. Her whole silhouette seemed to strive upward, elongated and thin, like a Gothic statue. Long hair, waist-length, braided in two braids, blue almond-shaped eyes seemed to be looking somewhere over this mortal world and seeing something inaccessible to others. No one would call Jeanne a beauty, but there was something bewitching in her - everyone recognized it.
But what did the young girl find in the thirty-two-year-old haggard half-tramp with the burning eyes of a tuberculosis patient? By 1917, when they met, Modi was no longer the romantic handsome man who had once attracted the attention of Akhmatova. The wild black curls thinned out, the teeth - or rather, what was left of them - turned black. When Madame and Monsieur Hebuterne, respectable philistine Catholics, found out with whom their daughter had contacted, they immediately threatened her with a parental curse if she did not immediately leave this dirty Jew-shaggy. The father of the family Ashil-Casimir Hebuterne held an extremely solid, from his point of view, position of a senior cashier in a haberdashery store. He wore stiff collars, a black frock coat, and had no sense of humor at all. The Hebuternes cherished the dream of raising their children - son Andre and daughter Jeanne - as respectable people as they considered themselves.
... Now Modigliani appeared daily at the Rotunda or at Rosalie in the company of Jeanne. As usual, he first drew visitors who liked him something, offered his drawings to foreigners wandering to admire the local colorful society (Modi always asked for a meager fee, and if she did not suit a potential buyer, he immediately tore the drawing into small pieces before his eyes). shreds). By nightfall, having got pretty drunk, he certainly began to bully someone. But even if Modi got into a drunken fight, Zhanna made no gesture to stop him, and looked at it with amazing dispassion. There was no fear or concern in her blue eyes. By two o'clock in the morning, Modi was literally thrown out of the establishment by the scruff of the neck, like a naughty dog. After waiting a minute, Jeanne got up and followed him like a silent shadow.Often they sat on the bench until morning in complete silence, breathing in the cold night air and watching the stars gradually grow pale and give way to dawn. Modi began to doze, then woke up again, until Zhanna pulled his sleeve - this meant that it was time to take her home. Modi obediently followed Jeanne along the echoing and deserted Parisian boulevards to Rue Amiot, where her parents lived, and then stood under the windows for a long time, listening to the screams of mother Hebuterne, who met her nefarious daughter beyond the threshold, in the predawn silence - “ a slut, a prostitute, and a Jewish whore."
He would have immediately taken her away from those pompous cretins of the Hebuternes, but where could Modi have taken Jeanne? In cheap hotel rooms with bedbugs and cockroaches? On park benches?
Soon, however, the problem was resolved - Modigliani's friend and agent, Monsieur Zborovsky, made a grand gesture, offering to pay for an apartment in the house where he himself lived, for which the artist undertook to supply him with at least two paintings or drawings a week. Zbo had not the slightest doubt that Modigliani was a talent that needed to be supported in every possible way, and that someday these idiot collectors would understand who had to be bought in Paris.
1917 Jeanne posing in the studio
At the beginning of 1917 Modi and Jeanne moved to Rue Grande Chaumière. And the next day, Modi threw a feast in a restaurant at Rosalie's: on the occasion of a housewarming party, Zborowski lent money to Modigliani. Suddenly, Simone Tiru, an artist and model, Modi's former girlfriend, loomed in the doorway, surrounded by a gang of her friends. Everyone was worried. The red-haired Simone was advancing straight at Jeanne, putting her huge belly forward. “Do you know, doll, that here he is,” pointing to Modi and tapping his stomach, “the father of this unfortunate child?” “You slept with me exactly the same as with everyone here! So make someone else happy with your child! shouted Modi jumping up from his chair. - I recognize the child only from her! Modi pointed to Zhanna. “She alone will carry my children!” They looked around in bewilderment - Modi behaved completely inappropriately. Firstly, everyone knew that he lived with Simone for a long time, and it is very likely that the child she is carrying is from him; in addition, such a story was the most ordinary in Montparnasse - here they often could not figure out who was giving birth to whom. If Modi, with the same equanimity with which he drank a shot of brandy, recognized the child, it would look normal.Everyone around, including Simone, was well aware that there was absolutely nothing to take from him, so he would have admitted - and that was the end of it. Most likely, Simone was expecting something of the kind, but Modigliani went into a scream, and Jeanne looked at her and was silent. Simone caught her impassive enigmatic glance, and suddenly she was afraid. "You are a witch! she hissed like a cat to her rival. - Or crazy! she added quickly: "God will curse you and your children." “And you, handsome,” Simone said, turning to Modi, “your goddess will quickly bring you to the grave. So see you in the next world!” And Simone coughed desperately - she, like Modigliani, suffered from tuberculosis.
Gerard Modigliani, only son of Amadeo
On page 99 of Amedeo Modigliani's daughter's book, Modigliani: Man and Myth, there is an interesting footnote stating that Simone Thirou has died in Paris. Simone posed for Modigliani. She fell in love with him, but the feelings were unrequited. When the girl became pregnant, Amedeo refused to recognize himself as the father of the child. She gave birth to a boy, whom Modigliani did not even want to hear about. After Simone's death, the boy was adopted by a French family.
With the advent of Jeanne, Modigliani's life not only did not enter a calm channel, but, on the contrary, completely went wrong. Now, instead of taking up the brush in the morning, Modi tried to quickly slip away from the break, leaving his Zhanna all alone for the whole day. He wandered from one cafe to another, sold to someone his hastily made drawings on the spot and bought himself a drink with these miserable centimes. Modi soon lost the ability to work sober. After midnight, Zhanna looked for him in one of the drinking establishments, and often in the police commissariat, and brought him home. She undressed him, washed him, put him to bed, without uttering a single reproach. They generally spoke to each other strangely little.
In the cafe. Modigliani second from right
Not at all Zhanna, whom Modi called his wife, but Zborowski from early in the morning, before Modi had time to sneak out, began to beg him to "work a little." Modi was capricious, shouting that he could not write in the room, "icy, like the steppes of Siberia"! Zbo brought firewood, it became hot as hell, and then Modi “remembered” that he had no paints. Zbo ran for paints. At this time, some naked model patiently watched all this, perched in a corner of a hard, uncomfortable sofa. Hanka, Zbo's wife, came running, worried that her husband was staring at a naked girl for too long (besides, she was angry that Modigliani was painting "all sorts of stupid sheep" and not her). Among this bedlam, screams, screams and persuasion, only Jeanne kept complete imperturbability. She was either quietly cooking in another room, or painting. Her face, as usual, remained perfectly clear and serene.It usually ended with Zbo bringing a bottle of rum from a nearby shop with his own hands. He understood that if Modi completely stopped working, then tomorrow he and Jeanne would have nothing to eat. Zbo has almost no drawings of Modi left to sell quickly, so he will have to once again run to the pawnshop and pawn his last summer suit. Otherwise, his crazy doves will starve to death.
Having drained the glass, Modi took up the brush with curses. Every five minutes he came in with a fit of coughing and spitting up blood as if he wanted to spit out the insides. But even these heartbreaking sounds did not cause Jeanne any signs of anxiety.
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) "Portrait of the Polish Poet and Art Dealer Leopold Zborovsk"
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) "Anna (Hanka) Zabrowska" 1916-17
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) "Portrait of Leopold Zborowski" 1916-17
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) "Anna (Hanka) Zabrowska"
Once, when Modi, as usual, disappeared somewhere, Zborovsky and his wife dragged Zhanna almost by force. In two voices, worrying and interrupting each other, they began to explain to her that Modi needed to be saved, that he was dying: from drunkenness, progressive tuberculosis, and most importantly, he was losing faith in his talent. Zhanna politely listened to them, took a sip from a cup of tea, raised her blue eyes, covered with some kind of mystical veil, to the Zborowskis, and said with soft confidence: “You just don’t understand - Modi must definitely die.” They stared dumbfounded at her. “He is a genius and an angel,” Jeanne continued calmly. “When he dies, everyone will immediately understand this.” The Zborowskis looked at each other in fear and hurried to turn the conversation to another topic.The First World War was on. The bombing of Paris began. Montparnasse was empty - everyone who could, went to the front. Modigliani was also eager, but foreigners, moreover, tuberculosis patients, were not taken into the army. During air raids on the city, Modi and Zhanna could often be seen on the street - they calmly walked under exploding shells and were in no hurry to take cover in a bomb shelter ...
Immediately after the end of the war, the demand for Modigliani's paintings suddenly increased; not the last role in this was played by a large exhibition of French painting, which opened in the summer of 1919 in London. For the first time, critics paid attention not only to the paintings of Picasso and Matisse, but also to the paintings of Modigliani. Now Zborowski gave Modi 600 francs a month (for comparison: a very decent lunch of soup, meat, vegetables, cheese and a liter of wine cost about one franc twenty-five centimes)! With this amount, a moderate person could lead a quite prosperous life, but Modi, who had dreamed of wealth all his life, was now completely indifferent to money.
The same applied to his beloved - despite the fact that in November 1918 their daughter was born, Zhanna did not show a need for new furniture, decent clothes, or toys for the baby. And Modi, having received another amount from Zborowski, immediately went with one of his countless friends to restaurants. Now already one glass was enough for Amedeo to fall into a deranged state and begin to destroy tables and dishes. When the aggressive mood left him, he started a new show: he pulled out the remaining banknotes from his trousers pocket and scattered them like fireworks on the heads of visitors.Modigliani became more and more obsessed with the idea of his own death. His health was deteriorating every day, but he did not want to hear about doctors and treatment. He gave up work altogether. Like a ghost, Modi wandered the streets of Paris and harassed everyone with endless whining: “That's it, I'm finished! Do you know that I’m definitely finished now?” Zhanna searched for him at night and more than once found him lying in a ditch, sometimes in an embrace with the same smoke-drunk prostitutes.
1919, one of the last photographs of Modigliani
At the beginning of the winter of 1920, Modigliani came to Rosalie, poured himself a brandy, solemnly saying: “To the repose of the soul of Modigliani”, drank it in one gulp and suddenly dragged on the Jewish prayer for the dead, which he had heard as a child in Livorno. Zborovsky, who arrived in time, with difficulty pulled the reluctant Modigliani out of the restaurant, brought him home and put him to bed by force. Zhanna went away somewhere, Zbo went into the next room for something and ... froze in horror: two unfinished paintings of Zhanna stood on the chairs - on one she lay dead; On the other hand, she committed suicide...
When Zbo returned to Modi's room, Zhanna was already sitting by the patient's bedside: they were talking serenely about something. An hour later, Modi became delirious, and Zbo decided to take him to the hospital for the poor without wasting time.There Modigliani was diagnosed with meningitis due to tuberculosis. He suffered terribly, and he was given an injection, after which Modi did not come to his senses. When the doctors came out to announce that Modigliani had died, Jeanne smiled calmly, nodded her head and said, "I know." Entering the ward (Jeanne was about to give birth again and walked waddling like a duck), she clung to the lips of her dead lover for a long time. The next day, in the morgue, Jeanne ran into Simone Thirou and suddenly, stopping, slapped her twice in the face, saying quietly: “This is for you for my damned children.”
death mask of Modigliani
On the day of Modigliani's death, January 24, 1920, friends did not allow the pregnant Jeanne to remain alone and almost forcibly escorted her to her parents. For the Hebuternes, everything that happened was just a terrible, indelible stain of shame. Jeanne was lying on the sofa in her room with her face turned to the wall, and her parents in the living room were arguing loudly about her future fate. Father Hebuterne insisted that the fallen daughter leave his house forever. Jeanne's brother Andre meanwhile quietly went up to his sister. "Don't worry about me, everything will be fine," she whispered to him. And then she told Andre about the visions that visited her more than once, that Modi is an angel and a genius, who is waiting for eternal happiness in heaven, and here, on earth, he is recognized only after death; and that she, Jeanne, was sent into this world only to accompany Modi to where no one would stop them from loving each other...Suddenly Jeanne closed her eyes and fell silent, as if she had fallen asleep in mid-sentence. Andre soon dozed off, but was immediately awakened by the loud banging of the window frame. Jeanne was not in the room. And below, on the street, a crowd of onlookers was already gathering, staring at the sprawled mutilated body of a pregnant woman ...
text partly by E. Golovina
As Jeanne predicted, Modigliani's works became known and in demand immediately after his death - they began to be bought up
already during his funeral. During his lifetime, unlike Picasso or Chagall, he was completely unknown, but he will pass a few
decades, and at Christie's auction, a portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne, once painted by her impoverished lover, will be sold for $ 42.5 million:
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) "Jeanne Hebuterne (Au chapeau)" 1919
And Konstantin Brinkushi, who had a great influence on his work. Modigliani was in poor health - he often suffered from lung diseases and at the age of 35 died of tuberculous meningitis. About the life of the artist is known only from a few reliable sources.
Modigliani's heritage consists mainly of paintings and sketches, but from 1914 he was mainly engaged in sculptures. Both on canvases and in sculpture, Modigliani's main motive was a man. Apart from this, several landscapes survive; still lifes and genre paintings did not interest the artist. Often Modigliani turned to the works of representatives of the Renaissance, as well as to the African art that was popular at that time. At the same time, Modigliani's work cannot be attributed to any of the modern trends of that time, such as cubism or fauvism. Because of this, art critics view Modigliani's work as separate from the mainstreams of the time. During his lifetime, Modigliani's work was not successful and became popular only after the artist's death: at two Sotheby's auctions in 2010, two Modigliani paintings were sold for 60.6 and 68.9 million US dollars, and in 2015 "Reclining Nude" was sold at auction "Christie" for 170.4 million US dollars.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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✪ Modigliani, "Girl in a shirt"
Subtitles
We are in the Albertina Gallery. Before us is Modigliani's painting "Girl in a Shirt". This is a classic work by Modigliani. The girl is not quite in her shirt. You're right. It is covered with some kind of white cloth. You used the word "classical" and I think it's quite appropriate here. Take a look at the beautiful curves of the girl's body. These contours remind me of ancient Greek sculptures, or even the elongated, curved nudes in Ingres' paintings. I think this is a sign of a crisis. The modernist artist starts from the Italian tradition and tries to find a connection between the 20th century, between all the principles of modernism with its self-awareness and, of course, its history. Modigliani emphasizes that he uses these materials quite consciously. Take a look at the girl's skin. You mentioned Ingres. In his paintings, the skin seems smooth, porcelain. This is closer to the academic tradition of the 19th century. Here the surface is rough, the paint lays unevenly. It's more of a stucco than smooth porcelain. Due to this, the viewer draws attention to the paint, and moreover, to the method of applying paint chosen by the artist. You're right, this girl's skin doesn't look like porcelain. It resembles fresco plaster or terracotta. And yet here you can feel the influence of classicism. But do not forget that this is 1918. Marriage and Picasso have already destroyed the form, broken the space, and Modigliani deliberately creates a classic, timeless image. I think you are right. This is primarily a nude, the most traditional subject of the image. Here you can feel great respect for the tradition that the artist put into the picture. But at the same time, it emphasizes the system of perception or image, which is connected rather not with the object of observation, but with the picture itself. I see this, for example, by the way the arms and legs seem to be created from a chain of geometric shapes, and not depicted in accordance with how the muscles and bones in the girl's body are actually located. Yes, but the same is true for Ingres. Yes, that's right. Ingres begins to freely interpret the structure of the human body. Here, on the one hand, Ingres, and on the other, Braque and Picasso. There is a certain convention here, which Ingres would never allow. For example, take a look at the girl's hands. The left palm, lying on the knee, is only outlined with orange, terracotta paint, and the tips of the fingers are indicated by thin orange-red lines. The essence is in the process of creating a picture. In how the artist finds the right forms, lines, the right visual means. I think Modigliani draws our attention to this. Yes, he wants us to see this girl, but he also wants us to see the creative process. So he allows himself to leave pencil lines. And even the canvas is visible here and there. Right. And many different types of strokes, different painting techniques. Much of what is related to the creative process is not hidden here, but presented to the viewer. In a sense, the process of constructing, creating, thinking about the meaning and mode of representation is here open to us. Yes, you are absolutly right. I think Modigliani really draws our attention to different types of strokes: some are fast, others are neat, others are very gentle. In addition, Modigliani, as is often the case, did not draw the eyes. Thanks to this, as in the case of classical statues, it is possible to look at the forms without being distracted by the eye. Turning the eyes into angular ovals without pupils that cannot look at the viewer, the artist reminds us of geometry, abstraction, and finally, form. The beginning of the 20th century is an incredible period of tension between depiction, technique and the meaning of a work in a world where the art process itself is recognized as art. Subtitles by the Amara.org community
Biography
Childhood
Amedeo (Jedidiah) Modigliani was born into a Sephardic Jewish family, Flaminio Modigliani and Eugenia Garcin, in Livorno (Tuscany, Italy). He was the youngest (fourth) of the children. His elder brother, Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani (1872-1947, family name meno), later a well-known Italian anti-fascist politician. His mother's great-grandfather, Solomon Garcin, and his wife Regina Spinoza settled in Livorno as early as the 18th century (however, their son Giuseppe moved to Marseille in 1835); the father's family moved to Livorno from Rome in the middle of the 19th century (the father himself was born in Rome in 1840). Flaminio Modigliani (son of Emanuele Modigliani and Olimpia Della Rocca) was a mining engineer who ran coal mines in Sardinia and managed nearly thirty acres of forest land owned by his family.
By the time of the birth of Amedeo (family name Dedo) family affairs (trade in firewood and coal) fell into decay; mother, born and raised in Marseille in 1855, had to earn a living teaching French and translating, including the works of Gabriele d'Annunzio. In 1886, his grandfather settled in Modigliani's house - Isaac Garcin, who had become impoverished and moved to his daughter from Marseilles, who, until his death in 1894, was seriously engaged in raising his grandchildren. His aunt Gabriela Garcin (who later committed suicide) also lived in the house, and thus Amedeo was immersed in French from childhood, which later facilitated his integration in Paris. It is believed that it was the romantic nature of the mother that had a huge impact on the worldview of the young Modigliani. Her diary, which she began to keep shortly after the birth of Amedeo, is one of the few documentary sources about the life of the artist.
At the age of 11, Modigliani fell ill with pleurisy, in 1898 with typhus, which was an incurable disease at the time. This became a turning point in his life. According to his mother, lying in a feverish delirium, Modigliani raved about the masterpieces of Italian masters, and also recognized his destiny as an artist. After his recovery, his parents allowed Amedeo to drop out of school so that he could start taking drawing and painting lessons at the Livorne Academy of Arts.
Study in Italy
In 1898, Modigliani began visiting Guglielmo Micheli's private art studio in Livorno. At 14, he was the youngest student in his class. In addition to lessons in the studio with a strong focus on impressionism, in the atelier of Gino Romiti Modigliani studied to portray the nude. By 1900, young Modigliani's health had deteriorated, in addition, he fell ill with tuberculosis and was forced to spend the winter of 1900-1901 with his mother in Naples, Rome and Capri. From his travels, Modigliani wrote five letters to his friend Oscar Ghiglia, from which one can learn about Modigliani's attitude towards Rome.
In the spring of 1901, Modigliani followed Oscar Ghiglia to Florence - they were friends despite a nine-year age difference. After spending the winter in Rome in the spring of 1902, Modigliani entered the Free School of Nude Painting. (Scuola libera di Nudo) in Florence, where he studied the art of Giovanni Fattori. It was during that period that he began to visit Florentine museums and churches, to study the Renaissance art that admired him.
A year later, in 1903, Modigliani again followed his friend Oscar, this time to Venice, where he remained until moving to Paris. In March, he entered the Venice Institute of Fine Arts. (Istituto di Belle Arti di Venezia) while continuing to study the works of the old masters. At the Venice Biennale of 1903 and 1905, Modigliani got acquainted with the works of the French Impressionists - sculptures by Rodin and examples of symbolism. It is believed that it was in Venice that he became addicted to hashish and began to take part in seances.
Paris
At the beginning of 1906, with a small amount of money that his mother was able to raise for him, Modigliani moved to Paris, which he had been dreaming of for several years, as he hoped to find understanding and stimulus for creativity among Parisian artists. At the beginning of the 20th century, Paris was the center of world art, young unknown artists quickly became famous, more and more avant-garde areas of painting opened up. The first months Modigliani spent in Parisian museums and churches, got acquainted with painting and sculpture in the halls of the Louvre, as well as with representatives of modern art. At first, Modigliani lived in a comfortable hotel on the right bank, as he considered it appropriate to his social position, but soon he rented a small studio in Montmartre and began attending classes at the Academy of Colarossi. At the same time, Modigliani met Maurice Utrillo, with whom they remained lifelong friends. At the same time, Modigliani became closer to the poet Max Jacob, whom he then repeatedly painted, and Pablo Picasso, who lived near him in Bato Lavoir. Despite his poor health, Modigliani took an active part in the noisy life of Montmartre. One of his first Parisian friends was the German artist Ludwig Meidner, who called him " the last representative of bohemia":
“Our Modigliani, or Modi as he is called, was a typical and at the same time very talented representative of the bohemian Montmartre; rather, even he was the last true representative of Bohemia ".
While living in Paris, Modigliani experienced great financial difficulties: although his mother regularly sent him money, they were not enough to survive in Paris. The artist often had to change apartments. Sometimes he even left his works in apartments when he was forced to leave the next shelter, as he could not pay for the apartment.
In the spring of 1907, Modigliani settled in a mansion, which was leased to young artists by Dr. Paul Alexander. The young doctor became Modigliani's first patron, and their friendship lasted seven years. Alexander bought Modigliani's drawings and paintings (his collection included 25 paintings and 450 graphic works), and also arranged orders for portraits for him. In 1907, several of Modigliani's works were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, the following year, at the urging of Paul Alexander, he exhibited five of his works at the Salon des Indépendants, among them the portrait of the Jewess. Modigliani's works were left without public attention, because they did not belong to the then fashionable direction of cubism, which arose in 1907 and whose founders are Picasso and Georges Braque. In the spring of 1909, through Alexandre Modigliani, he received the first order and painted the portrait "Amazon".
Sculpture
In April 1909, Modigliani moved to an atelier in Montparnasse. Through his patron, he met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, who later had a huge influence on Amedeo. For some time, Modigliani preferred sculpting to painting. It was even said that for his sculptures, Modigliani stole stone blocks and wooden sleepers from the construction sites of the metro being built at that time. The artist himself was never puzzled by the denial of rumors and fabrications about himself. There are several versions why Modigliani changed his field of activity. According to one of them, the artist had long dreamed of doing sculpture, but did not have the technical capabilities that became available to him only after moving to a new atelier. According to another, Modigliani wanted to try his hand at sculpture because of the failure of his paintings at exhibitions.
Thanks to Zborowski, Modigliani's work was exhibited in London to rave reviews. In May 1919, the artist returned to Paris, where he took part in the Autumn Salon. Upon learning of Jeanne's re-pregnancy, the couple decided to get engaged, but the wedding never took place due to Modigliani's tuberculosis at the end of 1919.
Modigliani died on January 24, 1920 from tuberculous meningitis in a Paris clinic. A day later, on January 25, Jeanne Hébuterne, who was 9 months pregnant, committed suicide. Amedeo was buried in a modest grave without a monument in the Jewish section of the Père Lachaise cemetery; in 1930, 10 years after Jeanne's death, her remains were buried in a nearby grave. Their child was adopted by Modigliani's sister.
Creation
The direction in which Modigliani worked is traditionally referred to as expressionism. However, this issue is not so clear cut. No wonder Amedeo is called the artist of the Parisian school - during his stay in Paris, he was influenced by various masters of fine art: Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Picasso, Renoir. In his work there are echoes of primitivism and abstraction. The sculptural studios of Modigliani clearly show the influence of the then fashionable African sculpture on his work. Actually expressionism in the work of Modigliani is manifested in the expressive sensuality of his paintings, in their great emotionality.
