Modigliani paintings with titles. Artist Modigliani

(1884-1920) Italian painter, graphic artist and sculptor

In the modern mind, the appearance Amedeo Modigliani largely formed under the influence of the brilliant performance of the French actor Gerard Philippe in the film "Montparnasse-19". He created the image of an unrecognized genius who died alone and in poverty. But this is only partly true: contemporaries recognized the talent of Amedeo Modigliani. However, at the beginning of the century there were many artists in Paris, and not all of them were able to assert themselves, become famous and rich. Nevertheless, the legend has been created, and it is very difficult to change the prevailing stereotype.

Biographical information about Amedeo Modigliani is contradictory and extremely scarce. So, according to one of the legends, it was assumed that the artist's mother came from the family of B. Spinoza. In fact famous philosopher died without issue.

As for the father, he was not the owner of the bank, as Modigliani's admirers said, but was only its founder. Therefore, the fact that a poor artist in Italy had rich relatives who did not support him in time also belongs to the realm of fiction.

In fact, both Amedeo Modigliani's father and mother came from Orthodox Jewish families. His ancestors settled in Livorno, where the mother of the future artist, Eugenia Garcin, married Flaminio Modigliani. They had four children - Emmanuele, a future lawyer and member of parliament, Margherita, who became the foster mother of the artist's daughter, Umberto, who became an engineer, and, finally, Amedeo. By the time of his birth, the family was on the verge of ruin, and only with the help of Modigliani's friends could they somehow get back on their feet. Amedeo Garcin, Eugenia's older brother, helped more than others. He further helped the future artist, who was named after his uncle.

Amedeo Modigliani studied well enough, but the school did not interest him at all. In 1898 he moved serious illness- typhoid. Apparently, at this time, Modigliani realized that he could draw. Soon drawing captured him so much that he began to ask his mother to find him a teacher. At the age of twelve, Amedeo began studying in a studio run by Guglielmo Micheli, a supporter of post-impressionism. However, the formation of Amedeo Modigliani took place under the influence of many artists. Passion affected his work domestic artists, primarily representatives of the Sienese and Florentine schools - Sandro Botticelli and Filippo Lissh.

At the end of 1900, Amedeo Modigliani fell ill again - typhus gave a complication to the lungs. On the advice of doctors, he went south and lived for two years in Naples. There he first began to paint sculpture and architecture. In the sketches of the sculptures of the Neapolitan cathedrals, the ovals of his future paintings are already visible.

In 1902, Amedeo Modigliani returned to Livorno, but soon left his homeland again. For several months he attended the Free School of the Nude in Florence. This educational institution was a branch of the Institute of Fine Arts in Venice. There he became a teacher famous graph Fattori. From him, Modigliani adopted an enduring love for the line, the simplicity of form while maintaining volume. Modigliani liked to paint nudes, admiring the fragility and grace female body. He creates mainly chamber portraits, avoiding the deliberate pretentiousness inherent, for example, in the paintings of Picasso. He also gave great importance space, achieving deliberate asymmetry. At the same time, his works are distinguished by a special lyricism; when studying them, a feeling of fragility and unreliability of the outside world is born.

With the help of his uncle, banker Amedeo Garsena, Amedeo Modigliani travels to Venice several times. But gradually he begins to understand that he must definitely get to Paris, which was then considered an artistic Mecca. In 1906, Modigliani finally settled in Paris.

At first, he enrolled in the Colarossi Academy, but soon left it, because he could not come to terms with the framework of the academic tradition. Amedeo Modigliani rents a studio in Montmartre, where his first Parisian works appeared. But a year later, the artist moves from Montmartre. At that time, he has an admirer - Dr. Paul Alexander. Together with his brother, the doctor maintained a kind of shelter for poor artists. Modigliani settled there in the autumn of 1907. It was Alexander who became the buyer of the Jewess, for which he then paid only two hundred francs.

And a little later, he convinced Amedeo Modigliani to give his work to the exhibition of the Salon des Indépendants. At the end of 1907, five works by the Italian master were exhibited there. Familiar doctors snapped up these paintings. In autumn, Modigliani exhibits again at the Salon, but this time no one buys his work. Depression, complete loneliness, in which the artist found himself because of his "explosive" nature, addiction to alcohol caused the appearance of a kind of internal barrier that so interfered with him all subsequent years.

Amedeo Modigliani constantly communicated with his contemporaries - J. Braque, M. Vlaminck, Pablo Picasso. Fate will give him only fourteen years for creativity. During this time, the young man will develop interesting artist, which will create its own unique way of depicting figures and human faces, where swan necks, elongated ovals, somewhat elongated torsos, almond-shaped eyes without pupils will dominate.

At the same time, all Modigliani's characters are easily recognizable, although what we have before us is the author's vision of his characters, close at the same time to decadent stylization and African sculpture.

The portraits of Amedeo Modigliani were written in part and under the influence of Cezanne, whose large exhibition he saw in 1907. From the passion for Cezanne, there are attempts to convey the subject through a special plastic space and a new palette of colors. But Modigliani, in this case, retains an extraordinary vision of the hero, almost always depicting a seated person, as, for example, in his painting “The Sitting Boy”.

Taking pity on the artist, some specially commissioned paintings for him to support him. But mostly he painted close people - M. Jacob, L. Zborowski, P. Picasso, D. Rivera. One cycle of portraits was inspired in 1914 by a meeting with the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova. Unfortunately, only one drawing has survived from the entire cycle, the one that Akhmatova took with her. In it, the dominant space is the famous running line of Amedeo Modigliani.

Acquaintance with Akhmatova cannot be considered accidental. We should not forget that already in his youth, Modigliani went through the influence of the philosopher F. Nietzsche, as well as the poet and writer G. D "Annunzio. He knew perfectly well classical Italian and new French symbolist poetry, read F. Villon, Dante, Sh Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud At the beginning of the 20th century, a passion for the philosophy of A. Bergson will come.

The versatility of interests, passion for travel, the desire to constantly discover new things in communication with contemporaries led Modigliani to turn to different forms of art. Almost simultaneously with serious paintings his sculptures appear.

Choosing your own path freelance artist, Modigliani leads a bohemian lifestyle. He doesn't graduate from art schools, he just goes to them, tries hashish and turns from a shy modest youth into a cult figure. All those who knew Modigliani note his unusual appearance and penchant for extraordinary actions. At the same time, the addiction to alcohol and drugs can be explained by the fact that he sought to overcome internal uncertainty or simply succumbed to the influence of friends.

Amedeo Modigliani has a lot in common with Matisse - the laconicism of the line, the clarity of the silhouette, the generalization of the form. But Modigliani does not have Matissian monumentalism, his images are much more chamber, intimate ( female portraits, nude), Modigliani's line is of extraordinary beauty. The generalized drawing conveys the fragility and grace of the female body, the flexibility of the long neck, and the sharp character male posture. You recognize the artist by a certain type of face: close-set eyes, a laconic line of a small mouth, a clear oval, but these repeated techniques of writing and drawing do not in the least destroy the individuality of each image.

At the end of his life path Amedeo Modigliani met the aspiring artist Jeanne Hebuterne, and they began to live together. As usual, Modigliani painted a portrait of a person who became close to him. But, unlike her former girlfriends, she became for him a ray of happiness and light. However, their relationship was short-lived. In the winter of 1920, Modigliani died quietly in the hospital. After the funeral, Jeanne returned to her parents. But there she found herself in complete isolation, because the Catholic family could not come to terms with the fact that her husband was a Jew. Despite the fact that at that time Zhanna was expecting their second child, she did not want to live without her lover and jumped out of the window. She was buried a few days later.

After the death of her parents, little Jeanne was raised by Modigliani's relatives, they kept some of his paintings and did not prevent the girl from getting involved in painting. When she grew up, she became a biographer of her father and created a book about him.

The creative heritage of Amedeo Modigliani has spread all over the world. True, many of the artist's works have not been preserved due to the author's nomadic lifestyle. Often, Modigliani paid with his paintings, gave them to friends or gave them for safekeeping. Some of them died as the First World War. So, for example, a folder with drawings, left by the Russian writer I. Ehrenburg at the embassy of the Provisional Government in 1917, disappeared.

Amedeo Modigliani has become a kind of symbol of his difficult era. He was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery. On the grave there is a brief inscription - "Death overtook him on the threshold of glory."

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. IN Lately he changed beyond recognition and became like a ghost: bony as a skeleton, with a bluish complexion and trembling 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 deal 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 homely Dedo, came to Paris, the offspring of the 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. ( maiden name 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. No 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 full of people like him, unrecognized geniuses who come 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 completely 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 new apartment after all, 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

Evgenia Garsen 1925

In Livorno, Amedeo was accustomed to dealing with clean, well-bred youths from good families, I immediately had to make acquaintance with a very strange audience: the Parisian artistic bohemia consisted for the most part of homosexuals, drug addicts, gigolos, religious fanatics of all directions, cabalists, mystics and just crazy people. 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 Parisians beat 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 he was often called by friends and colleagues, is phonetically the same as the French word maudit, which means "damned"). 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 picked 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 admitted to his bosom friend, the sculptor Brancusi, that “waiting for the one and only woman who will become his eternal real love and which often comes to him in his dreams. 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 hectic life and poor health, energy in Modigliani was in full swing: he sometimes managed to write 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, he lived to the fullest coil. 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 Art Academy Colarossi wandered in with her friend for 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 fade 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 away, 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 had almost no drawings of Modi left to sell quickly, so he would have to Once again run to the pawnshop and pawn your 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, wrapped in some kind of mystical veil, and said with soft confidence: "You just don't understand - Modi definitely needs to 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 french painting 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 and fireworks scattered them on the heads of visitors.

Modigliani became more and more obsessed with the idea 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, while 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

Amadeo Modigliani was born on July 12, 1884. "Amateur" tells the story and Interesting Facts from his life.

Amedeo Modigliani (Modigliani, Amedeo) (1884−1920), outstanding italian painter and sculptor. Born July 12, 1884 in Livorno. After studying at the school of painting in Livorno with G. Micheli, in 1902 Modigliani entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and a little later - at the Academy in Venice.

At the beginning of 1906 he arrived in Paris, where he began to search for a modern artistic language. He was influenced by P. Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, P. Picasso, Fauvism and Cubism, but eventually developed own style, which is characterized by a rich and dense color.

Modigliani is related to the philosopher Baruch Spinoza

In November 1907, Modigliani met Dr. Paul Alexander, who rented a studio for him and became the first collector of his work. The artist became a member of the Independent group and in 1908 and 1910 exhibited his work in their salon.

Acquaintance with the sculptor Constantin Brancusi in 1909 played a fundamental role in the development of Modigliani's sculptural work. From Brancusi, Modigliani received support and valuable advice. During these years, Modigliani was mainly engaged in sculpture and the study of works of classical antiquity, Indian and African plastics. In 1912 he exhibited seven sculptures at the Salon d'Automne.

Artist under 16 was twice near death

With the outbreak of World War I, many of Modigliani's friends left Paris. The artist was oppressed by changes in life, unemployment, poverty. During this time, he met the English poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years. Modigliani was friendly with such different artists, as Picasso, Chaim Soutine and Maurice Utrillo, as well as with collectors and business people - Paul Guillaume and Leopold Zborowski. The latter became the patron of the artist and supported his work.

During these years, Modigliani returned to painting and created, perhaps, his most significant works. The abstractness inherent in his works was a consequence of the study of the art of ancient civilizations and the Italian primitive, as well as the influence of his friends the Cubists; at the same time, his work is remarkable for its striking subtlety. psychological characteristics. Later, the formal side of his work becomes more and more simple and classical, reduced to a combination of graphic and color rhythms.

By family tradition, the Modigliani family included Saint Francis of Assisi

In 1917, Modigliani, at that time already very ill and prone to alcoholism, met Jeanne Hebuterne, who became his companion in the last years of his life. The following year, Zborowski organized personal exhibition artist at the Bertha Weil Gallery. She was not successful, but caused a scandal with several images of nudity: they were considered indecent, and at the request of the police, the canvases were removed. Nevertheless, some French and foreign collectors showed interest in Modigliani's work. In 1918, the artist went to the Cote d'Azur for rest and treatment and stayed there for some time, continuing to work hard. Modigliani died shortly after returning to Paris on January 24, 1920. The next morning, Jeanne Hebuterne committed suicide.

Modigliani knew by heart hundreds of lines of Leopardi and Dante

Modigliani's works combine purity and refinement of style, symbolism and humanism, a pagan sense of fullness and unbridled joy of life, and a pathetic experience of the torment of an always restless conscience.

Interesting Facts

1. Modigliani is related to the philosopher Baruch Spinoza through his great-grandmother Regina Spinoza.

2. Modigliani's parents were Sephardic Jews. This ethnic group got its name after the expulsion from Spain and Portugal (the word Sephardic in modern Hebrew means "Spaniard").

3. Amedeo Modigliani was well educated. He knew history and literature very well, he could read poems for hours on end.

4. Mother's sister Lori loved Amedeo's little nephew very much. She took him to her from childhood and developed him in every possible way. Laurie wrote philosophical articles for various magazines, was fond of spiritualism and erotic poetry, promoted the ideas of Nietzsche and the Russian anarchist Kropotkin. Her hobbies were close to Modigliani.

5. An artist under the age of 16 was twice dying. First, the boy had been ill with pleurisy, which triggered the tuberculous process, and then with typhus.

6. As a child, during a fever caused by typhus, Amedeo, in delirium, told his mother about his desire to become an artist. She wrote about it in her diary.

7. Introducing himself, Amedeo said: “Modigliani. Jew". He was worried about his nationality, but chose the tactics of self-affirmation, not renunciation.

8. Modi, as he was often called by friends and colleagues, phonetically coincides with the French word maudit, which means “damned” in translation.

9. According to family tradition, St. Francis of Assisi was part of the family on the maternal side.

10. Modigliani knew by heart hundreds of lines of Leopardi and Dante, the poetry of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine. He avidly read Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, adored Gabriele D'Annunzio.

11. He also recited "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and "Songs of Maldoror" by heart.

12. Modigliani with Akhmatova read "Songs of Maldoror", which, as she recalled, he "always carried in his pocket." In Russia, the work of this author, Lautreamont, was unknown at that time.

13. The film "Montparnasse-19" Akhmatova called "vulgar".

14. Modigliani had a son, whom he abandoned even before the birth of the boy.

15. 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.

16. The works of Modigliani 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.

P. Picasso

Outstanding Italian painter and sculptor. Born July 12, 1884 in Livorno. After studying at the school of painting in Livorno under G. Micheli, in 1902 Modigliani entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and a little later - at the Academy in Venice.

At the beginning of 1906 he arrived in Paris, where he began to search for a modern artistic language. Experienced the influence of P. Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, P. Picasso, Fauvism and Cubism, but eventually developed his own style, which is characterized by rich and dense color.

In November 1907, Modigliani met Dr. Paul Alexander, who rented a studio for him and became the first collector of his work. The artist became a member of the Independent group and in 1908 and 1910 exhibited his work in their salon.

Acquaintance with the sculptor Constantin Brancusi in 1909 played a fundamental role in the development of Modigliani's sculptural work. Brancusi Modigliani received support and valuable advice. During these years, Modigliani was mainly engaged in sculpture and the study of works of classical antiquity, Indian and African plastics. In 1912 he exhibited seven sculptures at the Salon d'Automne.

With the outbreak of World War I, many of Modigliani's friends left Paris. The artist was oppressed by changes in life, unemployment, poverty. During this time, he met the English poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years. Modigliani was friends with such diverse artists as Picasso, Chaim Soutine and Maurice Utrillo, as well as with collectors and business people - Paul Guillaume and Leopold Zborowski. The latter became the patron of the artist and supported his work.

During these years, Modigliani returned to painting and created, perhaps, his most significant works. The abstractness inherent in his works was a consequence of the study of the art of ancient civilizations and the Italian primitive, as well as the influence of his friends the Cubists; at the same time, his works are distinguished by a striking subtlety of psychological characterization. Later, the formal side of his work becomes more and more simple and classical, reduced to a combination of graphic and color rhythms.

In 1917, Modigliani, at that time already very ill and prone to alcoholism, met Jeanne Hebuterne, who became his companion in the last years of his life. The following year, Zborowski organized a personal exhibition of the artist at the Bertha Weil Gallery. She was not successful, but caused a scandal with several images of nudity: they were considered indecent, and at the request of the police, the canvases were removed. Nevertheless, some French and foreign collectors showed interest in Modigliani's work. In 1918, the artist went to the Cote d'Azur for rest and treatment and stayed there for some time, continuing to work hard. Modigliani died shortly after returning to Paris on January 24, 1920. The next morning, Jeanne Hebuterne committed suicide.

Modigliani's works combine purity and refinement of style, symbolism and humanism, a pagan sense of fullness and unbridled joy of life, and a pathetic experience of the torment of an always restless conscience.

The biography of Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) is like a novel about a classical genius.

Short life, like a flash. Early death. Deafening posthumous glory, which overtook literally on the day of the funeral.

The paintings that the artist left as payment for lunch in a cafe overnight acquire a price of tens of millions of dollars!

And also the love of a lifetime. With a beautiful young girl who looks like Princess Rapunzel. And the tragedy is worse than the story of Romeo and Juliet.

If all this wasn't true, I would have snorted, “Oh, this doesn't 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 National Gallery Washington

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. Maybe a couple of works by Cezanne and El Greco. And the rest of his painting has almost no impurities.

If you look at early work 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 Bullfight, 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.

Amadeo 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 diseased 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 how they actually looked. Rather, it conveys character, soul. Adding something that a person did not see in the mirror. For example, the asymmetry of the face and body.

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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 be reading in her eyes, “What are you thinking 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 Artist's collection

He has many portraits of his friends and acquaintances from his circle. 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.

Discordant eyes, 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.

Amadeo Modigliani. Portrait of Chaim Soutine. 1917 Washington National Gallery

Amedeo wrote not only friends, but also unfamiliar people.

There is no such thing that one kind of emotion prevails in him. Like, make fun of everyone. To be touched, so by all.

Here, over this couple, he is clearly ironic. A gentleman in years marries a young girl of humble origin. For her, this marriage is an opportunity to solve her problems. financial difficulties.

Amadeo Modigliani. Bride and groom. 1916 Museum contemporary art, New York

fox cut cunning 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 clubfoot legs tell 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 a person. 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. His inability to take care of himself will lead him to stomach ulcers and extreme emaciation.

And worries about the persecution of the Nazis 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 very attractive man. The Italian of Jewish origin 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 main woman in the life of Modigliani 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 one. 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 is 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.

Amadeo 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

Amadeo Modigliani. Unfolded Nude. 1917 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Most of Nu Modigliani created in the period 1917-1918. 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 very close 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 the work of Modigliani indecent.

Amedeo Modigliani. Reclining Nude. 1917 Private collection

What? And this is in 1918? When nudes were painted by everyone who is not lazy?

Yes, we wrote a lot. But ideal and abstract women. And that means having 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 a woman is a goddess or real woman. Whether it deserves to be shown to the public or out of 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?

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)

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