Biography 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 WashingtonModigliani 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 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 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 financial problems.
Amadeo Modigliani. Bride and groom. 1916 Museum contemporary 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 clubfooted legs speaks to us of 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 the whole world 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 a 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 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 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 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 epilation turned out to be the main sign of whether a woman is a goddess or a 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 in 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) In contact with
The famous painter Amedeo Modigliani was born in 1884 in Livorno, in what was then the Kingdom of Italy. His parents were Sephardic Jews and there were four children in the family. Amedeo or Jedidia (that was his real name) was the smallest. He was destined to become one of the most famous artists the end of the century before last and the beginning of the last century, a prominent representative of the art of expressionism.
During his very short life, and he lived only 35 years, the artist managed to reach heights that were inaccessible to many other people who lived to advanced years. He burned very brightly, despite the lung disease that ate him. At the age of 11, the boy contracted pleurisy and then typhus. This is very serious disease after which many did not survive. But Amedeo survived, although it cost him his health. Physical weakness did not prevent the development of his genius, although it brought a handsome young man to the grave.
Modigliani lived his childhood and youth in. In this country, the environment itself and numerous monuments helped the study of ancient art. The sphere of interests of the future artist also included the art of the Renaissance, which helped him in his further development and largely influenced his perception of reality.
The time when Modigliani was formed as a person and as an artist gave the world many talented masters. During this period, the attitude to the art of the past was revised, and new artistic currents and directions. Having moved to 1906, the future master found himself in the thick of the seething events.
Like the masters of the Renaissance, Modigliani was primarily interested in people, not objects. Only a few landscapes survived in his creative heritage, while other genres of painting did not interest him at all. In addition, until 1914, he devoted himself almost exclusively to sculpture. In Paris, Modigliani met and became friends with numerous representatives of Bohemia, including Maurice Utrillo and Ludwig Meidner.
In his works, references to the art of the Renaissance period are periodically visible, as well as the undoubted influence African traditions in art. Modigliani has always stood aloof from all recognizable fashion trends, his work is a real phenomenon in the history of art. Unfortunately, very little documentary evidence and stories have been preserved about the life of the artist, which can be 100% trusted. During his lifetime, the master did not understand him and did not appreciate him at all, the paintings were not sold. But after his death in 1920 from meningitis, provoked by tuberculosis, the world realized that he had lost a genius. If he could see it, he would appreciate the irony of fate. Paintings that during his lifetime did not even bring him a piece of bread, at the beginning of the 21st century went under the hammer for fabulous sums, amounting to tens of millions of dollars. Truly, to become great, one must die in poverty and obscurity.
Modigliani's sculptures have much in common with African ones, but are by no means mere copies. This is a rethinking of a special ethnic style superimposed on modern realities. The faces of his statues are simple and extremely stylized, while they amazingly retain individuality.
Picturesque works of Modigliani are usually attributed to expressionism, but nothing in his work can be interpreted unambiguously. He was one of the first to bring emotions into paintings with naked female bodies - nudes. They have both eroticism and sex appeal, but not abstract, but completely real, ordinary. On the canvases of Modigliani, not ideal beauties are depicted, but living women with bodies devoid of perfection, which is why they are attractive. It was these paintings that began to be perceived as the pinnacle of the artist's work, his unique achievement.
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Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
Mariupol State University
History department
Theme: Amedeo Modigliani
Performed:
student Solieva M.
Teacher:
Mariupol2013
Introduction
1. Life and era
2. Creativity
3. Famous works
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
At the beginning of 1906, among the young artists, writers, actors who lived in Montmartre as a kind of colony, in which everyone, one way or another, knew each other, a new figure appeared and immediately attracted attention. It was Amedeo Modigliani, who had just arrived from Italy and settled in the rue Caulaincourt, in a small workshop shed in the middle of a wasteland overgrown with bushes, which was called "maquis" and just then they began to build up new houses. He was twenty-two years old. He was dazzlingly handsome, but apparently attracted to him with something even more unusual. Many of those who met him then for the first time remembered, first of all, the feverish gleam of large black, point-blank eyes on a dull, swarthy face. The low voice seemed "hot", the gait - flying, and the whole appearance - strong and harmonious.
The last of the Bohemian Mohicans, Amedeo Modigliani, lived a completely bohemian life. Poverty, illness, alcohol, drugs, sleepless nights, promiscuity were his constant companions. But this did not prevent him from becoming the greatest innovative artist who created the unique "world of Modigliani."1
We do not have Modigliani either in museums or in private collections (a few surviving drawings, of course, in no way fill this gap). In the early 1920s, when there was a spontaneous and mostly speculative marauding "distribution" of his paintings on the world art market, our country lived so hard that it had no time to worry about acquiring the latest Western painting.2 Modigliani was represented here for the first time in 1928 tolu at one of the exhibitions foreign art. After a long break, a few of his portraits appeared several times at exhibitions of works from museum and private collections in the United States, France, and Japan.
It is characteristic that, despite such a variety of works on Modigliani, Western art historians are increasingly expressing the opinion that his work still needs to be studied in more depth, that he has not yet been fully understood and not evaluated objectively enough. You really involuntarily think about this when you get acquainted with his works and at the same time read at least all the best that is written about him. It is hard not to notice that even the most serious, professionally sharp analysis of his work in the West is still limited mainly to problems of "pure form". It is considered abstractly and scrupulously in order to establish either the traditionalism or the originality of the techniques of his skill. Considered, as it were, in an airless space, in a forcibly closed sphere, these techniques of mastery are either compressed into a soulless protocol, reminiscent of a “case history,” or consistently provide a pretext for unrestricted comparisons, sometimes more or less justified, sometimes arbitrary. With whom only Modigliani is not brought together, whose only influences are not imposed on him! Names and schools are glued to his work in such abundance that to someone he may already seem to be either a general imitator, or an eclectic student - in any case, until, having passed through various "stages", he does not work out, finally, at the behest of another researcher, his own inimitable and inimitable style. And it becomes already difficult in this kaleidoscope of "influences" and "rapprochements" to determine those real sources and hobbies that really illuminated his path and helped him to become himself in art while still very young. It is not clear why his art is forcibly deprived of social and philosophical content. They admire him, praise the beauty of his painting and the elegance of his drawing, brushing aside his spiritual influence.
So, the purpose of this work is to trace the life and creative path of Amedeo Modigliani, and for this it is necessary:
outline the main stages of a short, but full of events, life of the artist;
highlight the work of Modigliani;
analyze the main work of the master.
Working with the literature on this topic, the author notes their limited number, but one can note the increased interest in the work of Modigliani over the past 10-20 years in domestic art history. The most famous Soviet study of the work of this master can be called a monograph by Vilenkin V.Ya. "Amedeo Modigliani". The author of the book introduces the reader to the life and work in detail, offers a deep, but perhaps not entirely objective analysis of the author's works. Werner's work "Amedeo Modigliani" is more objective, it also contains many interesting facts about the life of Modigliani, an analysis of the works, but more concise, but unlike the work of Vilenkin, contains a large number of color and black and white illustrations. The most complete collection of reproductions of Modigliani's works, in our opinion, is contained in the book “The World of Masterpieces. 100 world names in art. In addition to reproductions, the book contains a large introductory article with detailed biography of Amedeo Modigliani and brief analysis works.
1. Life and era
Amedeo Modigliani was born on July 12, 1884 in Livorno, on west coast Italy. His parents came from prosperous Jewish families (one of the grandfathers of the future artist was once a prosperous banker). But the world met the born child unkindly - in the year of Amedeo's birth, his father, Flaminio, went bankrupt, and the family was on the verge of poverty. In this situation, the mother of the future artist, Eugenia, who had an indestructible character, became the true head of the family. She received a very good education, tried her hand at literature, worked as a translator and taught children English and French.
Amedeo was the youngest and most beautiful of the four Modigliani children. The mother did not look for souls in him also because the boy grew up weak. In 1895, he became seriously ill with pleurisy. By family tradition, Amedeo began to draw only after he was seriously ill with typhoid fever in 1898. The mother said that some unusually picturesque, terrible wandering happened to her son, during which Amedeo described pictures that he had never seen before, and that supposedly it was during his illness that his passion for drawing was discovered. Around this time, Amedeo became seriously interested in drawing. TO schoolwork he was completely indifferent and at the age of fourteen he entered the workshop as an apprentice local artist and sculptor G. Micheli.
“Dedo (that was the name of the boy in the family) completely abandoned all his affairs,” his mother wrote in his diary, “and does nothing but draw ... He draws all day long, striking and embarrassing me with his passion. His teacher is very pleased with him. He says that Dedo draws very well for a student who has only studied painting for three months.”
In 1900, when Amedeo fell ill with pleurisy again, foci of tuberculosis were found in his left lung, which later became one of the causes of the artist’s early death. The mother took her son to improve his health on the island of Capri. On the way back, the teenager visited Rome, Florence and Venice. From this trip, letters sent by him to a friend have been preserved - with ardent declarations of love for art and with a mention of beautiful images, "disturbing the imagination." However, they also had something else. In one of his letters from Capri, the young traveler tells of "a walk on a moonlit night with a very attractive Norwegian girl."
In 1902, Modigliani left for Florence, where he entered the painting school. Having moved to Venice in March 1903, he continued his studies at the local Academy. Very few drawings and letters of the artist relating to this period have come down to us. Venice was an ethnically diverse city with rich cultural traditions. But Modigliani, like all young artists of his generation, was attracted to Paris. In January 1906, the 21-year-old artist set foot on the promised land of Paris. His beloved uncle, Amedeo Garcin, who helped him before, had died a year earlier, and now Modigliani received only a modest "stipend" from his mother.
He began wandering around cheap furnished rooms - first in Montmartre, and since 1909 - in Montparnasse, in the quarter of artists. Amedeo was excellent French and therefore without difficulty acquired Parisian friends, with whom he enjoyed the charms of metropolitan life, not bypassing bars with brothels (Fig. 1).
In November 1907, Modigliani met a young doctor and art lover, Paul Alexander, the first collector of his works. Only the World War separated them (Dr. Alexander was then mobilized to work in a military hospital). It was Alexander who in 1909 brought Modigliani together with the outstanding Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Under the influence of Brancusi, Amedeo became interested in sculpture, abandoning painting for several years (ill. 2,3). However, the dust is so harmful to his weak chest that he is temporarily forced to give up his favorite sculpture. For some time he even visits the Colarossi Academy, and we owe this visit to almost his latest drawings of nude models, made in an academic manner. Then the search for something new begins.
In addition, he is trying to resolve the two main tasks facing him: the first is to earn money, and the second is what he wrote about from Rome, “to come to his own truth about life, beauty and art”, that is, to find your topic and find your language. With the first task, he did not cope until the end of his life. His youthfully romantic phrase that "the commoners will never understand us" has found here, alas, its crude concreteness. Not a single Parisian tradesman agreed to buy canvases for anyone famous painter It's too risky an investment.
Bohemian life made itself felt. The artist's health deteriorated. In 1909 and in 1912, Modigliani went to his relatives in Italy to correct him, but, returning to Paris, he again preferred to live as before. He drank Modigliani heavily and often; drunk became unbearable. In a "foggy" state, he could insult a woman, get involved in a scandal, start a fight, even be naked in public. At the same time, almost everyone who knew him well notes that the sober artist was ordinary person, no different from most people of that time.
Before the First World War, Modigliani settled in the famous "Hive", or otherwise the "Rotonde", without mentioning which not a single story about the life of the legendary Montparnasse artists could do. A clumsy, strange building, which was the pavilion of wines at the World Exhibition of 1900, was dragged by some eccentric benefactor to the land he bought on the cheap almost on the outskirts of Paris and set up a hostel for the homeless and hopeless poor fellow artists. What kind of celebrities did not see through his dirty closets-workshops, more like coffins with flaps over the doors instead of beds. Fernand Léger, Marc Chagall, the French poet Blaise Cendrars lived here, and even our Lunacharsky once visited Modigliani. Modigliani owes this eerie "Hive" an acquaintance with a man whom he dearly loved and considered one of the greatest artists of his time. This is Chaim Soutine, a small-town Jew who escaped from the provincial Smilovichi, where fellow believers beat him for his paintings, and by some miracle flew into brilliant Paris. Soutine turned out to be an original artist with a great future. Modigliani painted two of his portraits, one of which, where Soutine has an open, perky face of a rogue guy, is very beautiful in painting.
With the outbreak of the First World War, Modigliani's life became even darker. Many of his friends were drafted into the army, loneliness set in. In addition, prices soared; stone and marble became an inaccessible luxury, and Modigliani had to forget about sculpture. Soon he met the writer Beatrice Hastings. The acquaintance turned into a stormy romance that lasted two years. The relationship between the lovers can be judged at least by the fact that once Modigliani admitted that he threw Beatrice out of the window, and another time, blushing with shame, told Jacques Lipchitz that Beatrice had beaten him with a rag.
It was during the war years that Modigliani managed to achieve some success. In 1914 Paul Guillaume began to buy the artist's works. In 1916 this “art dealer” was replaced by a native of Poland, Leopold Zborowski. In December 1917, Zborovsky agreed with the owner art gallery Bertha Weil on the organization of Modigliani's solo exhibition (it was his only lifetime "personal exhibition"). It seemed that the wall of non-recognition was about to collapse. However, the idea of the exhibition turned into a farce. The gallery was just opposite the police station, and when a small crowd gathered near the window of the gallery with a nude of Modigliani displayed to attract the public, one of the policemen decided to see what was happening there. Half an hour later, Madame Veil was ordered to remove the "abomination" from the window, and the exhibition had to be curtailed before its official opening.
A few months before the ill-fated exhibition, Modigliani met a 19-year-old student, Jeanne Hebuterne (ill. 4). The girl fell in love with the artist and remained with him until his death. However, his behavior did not improve from this. With Jeanne Modigliani was terribly rude. The poet Andre Salmon described one of the many public scandals Modigliani: “He dragged her (Jeanne) by the hand. Grabbing her by the hair, he pulled it with force and behaved like a madman, like a savage.
In March 1918, Zborovsky moved to the south of France, away from the capital, mired in military bustle. To keep himself company, he invited several artists - Modigliani was among them. So he ended up in Cannes, and then in Nice, where in November 1918 Jeanne had a daughter (also Jeanne). At the end of 1919, Modigliani (ill. 5) returned to Paris with both Jeannes, and a few months later fell ill with tuberculous meningitis.
On July 12, 1920, he died. The tragic postscript to Modigliani's life was the suicide of Jeanne Hebuterne. The morning after the funeral, she, being eight months pregnant, threw herself out of the window.
At the end of his biography, it is customary to put a bold point: finally, Modigliani found himself and expressed himself to the end. And he burned out in mid-sentence, his creative flight ended catastrophically, he also turned out to be one of those who “didn’t live out their own in the world, didn’t love their own on earth” and, most importantly, didn’t do it. Even on the basis of what he did undeniably perfectly in this one and only "period", which continues to live for us even today - who can say where, in what new and, perhaps, completely unexpected directions, in what unknown depths Would this passionate, longing for some last, all-exhaustive truth talent rush? Is there only one thing you can be sure of - that he would not have stopped at what he had already achieved.
2. Creativity
In the years 1898-1900, Amedeo Modigliani worked in the workshop of Guglielmo Micheli, and therefore we can say that First stage his work took place under the sign of Italian art of the XIX century. Since this century in a country with a glorious artistic past is not rich in outstanding achievements, many tend to underestimate the masters of this time and their creations. Meanwhile, they are an indisputable source of inspiration for a novice artist, and this fact cannot be refuted by the fact that few of Modigliani's early works, completed before moving to Paris, have come down to us. Perhaps in Livorno, Florence or Venice, unknown works by Modigliani of 1898-1906 will still be found, which will help shed light on the initial stage creative biography artist. In addition, we can draw on some feedback about early work Modigliani. And in general it is difficult to imagine that he passed contemporary art by his home country: it is obvious that the art of Italy of the 19th century made no less impression on the young Modigliani than the works of the Renaissance, and Boldini is also felt in the early Parisian works of Modigliani, like Toulouse-Lautrec.
During his stay in Rome in 1901, Modigliani admired the painting of Domenico Morelli (1826-1901) and his school. Sentimental paintings by Morelli biblical themes, his historical canvases and canvases on plots from the works of Tasso, Shakespeare and Byron are now completely forgotten. A bold step, leading far ahead of Morelli, was made by a group of very young artists "macchiaioli" (from macchia - a colorful spot). This school, young innovators, they were united by the rejection of the bourgeois tastes that prevailed in art, the apologists of which were academic genre painters. In terms of subject matter, the artists of the Macchiaioli group were close to the Impressionists: they also liked to depict peasant houses, rural roads, sun-drenched land and sun glare on the water, but they did not differ in courage artistic solutions inherent in the followers of Monet.
Apparently, during the period of his apprenticeship, Modigliani was for some time a supporter of artistic principles"macchiaioli". Micheli, his teacher, was himself a favorite student of one of the founders of this school, Giovanni Fattori (1828-1905) from Livorno. Micheli was a fairly well-known landscape painter, and he earned popularity among local art lovers with his seascapes filled with a feeling of freshness and light.
Modigliani worked as passionately as he lived. Alcohol and hashish never dampened his indefatigable desire to work. Probably, there were periods when, due to the lack of wide recognition, he fell into despair and gave up. Once, answering a friend who reproached him for idleness, he said: “I create at least three pictures a day in my head. What's the point of spoiling the canvas if no one will buy it anyway?" On the other hand, Arthur Pfannstiel, author of Modigliani and His Work, reports that the young artist was constantly sketching, feverishly filling his blue-covered notebooks with drawings, up to a hundred a day.
It should be remembered that during this period Modigliani still dreamed of becoming a sculptor and spent a significant part, if not the lion's share, of his efforts on sculpture. A man with a critical mindset, he periodically destroyed those things that seemed to him unsuccessful. But he also lost many jobs in hasty moves from one place to another, almost always secretly and without paying the owner for the rented premises. Angry homeowners destroyed the "crazy" paintings he left them in lieu of payment; the owners of bistros did not value his work too much, with whom he exchanged his works for drink more often than for food. He mindlessly gave away a lot of works to his numerous random girlfriends who did not take care of them. Modigliani never kept a record of his works.
It is noteworthy that the young painter was so little influenced by Fauvism and Cubism. The Fauvists put color at the basis of everything, and for Modigliani the main thing is the line. At first, he complained that his "damned Italian eyes" could not get used to the special Parisian lighting. His palette was not very diverse, and only once or twice did he resort to a coloristic experiment in the spirit of the neo-impressionists or fauvists. As a rule, he enclosed large surfaces of even color in thin, but clearly traced linear contours. Cubism, with its tendency towards dehumanization, was for Modigliani, who was looking for the possibility of expressing strong emotion, too rational.
If the early canvases of Modigliani, despite their excellent technical skill and individual glimpses of a peculiar charm and lyricism, are not yet truly outstanding works, then his drawings of 1906-1909 already anticipate the mature master of 1915-1920.
He spent the summer of 1909 with his family in Livorno and painted a number of paintings there, among which was a canvas called The Beggar. This canvas, as well as two versions of The Cellist, were among the six things he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1910. By this time, many critics, poets and fellow artists had already recognized him, however, except for Dr. Paul Alexander, who was devoted to him, no one wanted to buy his works. He moved from place to place, because there was never money for a decent workshop. At one time he lived in the so-called "Hive" - a strange, dilapidated house on Danzig Street, where Chagall, Kisling, Soutine and many other foreign artists also rented tiny workshops.
In 1909-1915 he considered himself a sculptor and worked very little in oils. During this period, Modigliani made many interesting and necessary acquaintances. In 1913 he met Chaim Soutine, an uncouth immigrant from Lithuania, and subsequently close friend tried to teach him good manners. Soutine was a dozen years younger, and his exuberant painting with characteristic "explosions" of pasty strokes could hardly please a friend from Italy. In 1914, Max Jacob introduced Modigliani to Paul Guillaume, the first marchant who managed to arouse interest in the artist's work among clients. But Modigliani had a much closer relationship with another Marchand, Leopold Zborowski, whom he met in 1916. A significant part of the works created by the artist in the last three or four years appeared thanks to the support of Zborowski and his wife. Zborowski was an unusual phenomenon among the marchants of that time: he had a fanatical affection for his ward, despite all the shortcomings of the artist - primarily recklessness and irascibility - which would alienate a less devoted person.
In December 1917, Modigliani's only real solo exhibition was organized by Zborowski at the Bertha Weil Gallery. Instead of the expected success, a noisy scandal erupted. A crowd gathered in front of the display case, in which the nude painting was displayed. The police insisted that this canvas and four other nudes be removed from the exhibition. None of the paintings were sold.
In May 1919, Modigliani returned to Paris, and Jeanne arrived there a little later. The first signs of success appeared. Newspapers began to write about the artist. Several of his canvases were shown at the French Art Exhibition in London. His work began to be in demand among buyers. Modigliani finally had a reason to perk up - if not for a new deterioration in health. Modigliani managed to simultaneously establish himself as a realist and non-objective. This inspired eclecticist - an aristocrat, a socialist and a sensualist in one person - uses the techniques of both the masters of the Ivory Coast (whose statues amaze the imagination without evoking a sense of belonging), and the icon painters of Byzantium and Early Renaissance(who touch us, but cannot shake us to the core). From all this, the quivering, exciting - in a word, unique - Modigliani is formed!
3. Famous works
Amedeo Modigliani art artist
The amazing manner of Modigliani was especially pronounced in his nudes and portraits. It was these works that, first of all, put him on the leading positions in the art of the twentieth century.
Modigliani's creative path turned out to be tragically short. He was given very little time - most of his best works fall on the last five years of his life. This explains the relatively modest size of his legacy, and some narrowness in the choice of topics - according to by and large, Modigliani worked in only two genres (nude and portrait). Nevertheless, even in such an era as generous with talents as the beginning of the last century, he managed not to get lost in the general “artistic” mass and declared himself to be one of the most original and poetic contemporary painters. And the style he created still haunts many artists, provoking them (often unconsciously) to imitate and repeat.
Modigliani's elongated forms have always aroused great interest. Their origins have been variously explained by critics. Some of these explanations are rather anecdotal - for example, relatively speaking, "alcoholic". It was argued that the elongated forms are the result of the artist's alcohol addiction, looking at women through the bottom of a glass or the curved neck of a bottle. Meanwhile, similar forms are also found among the Renaissance masters, before whom Modigliani bowed, and on African masks he loved. African masks did not exhaust his artistic hobbies. He was also attracted by the art of Ancient Egypt, the statues of the islands of Oceania, and much more. However, there was no talk of direct borrowing; if the ancient sculptures had an influence on the style of Modigliani, then only indirectly. Modigliani accepted only that which corresponded to his own searches.
In his "sculptural" five years, the artist painted only about two dozen paintings, while total number his surviving paintings are close to 350. He later abandoned the sculpture. Perhaps sculpting became simply unbearable for him. Stone carving is hard physical labor, and stone dust flying at the same time was contraindicated in spoiled tuberculosis easy artist. Be that as it may, created by the author sculptural works- an integral part of Amedeo's work. All existing sculptures by Modigliani were created between 1909 and 1914. These are 23 stone heads and two figures ( standing woman and caryatids). Modigliani made sketches of caryatids many times, intending to create a whole series of heads and figures for the temple of beauty he had conceived. This plan was not destined to come true. True, he showed seven heads (also a kind of series) at the Autumn Salon in 1912. A friend of the artist, the famous sculptor Jacob Epstein, noted in his autobiography that at night Modigliani lit candles mounted on stone heads and illuminated the studio with them, trying to “imitate the lighting of an ancient pagan temple.
Modigliani was a self-taught sculptor, which is why his early sculptures look crude (and even clumsy). But, working intensively, he soon found his own style, both elegant and powerful. Modigliani's stone heads have an attractive, almost magnetic force. It can be assumed how majestic the Temple of Beauty conceived by the artist could be.
The work of Modigliani is most often associated with the viewer precisely with his nudes. Modigliani had always been interested in the nude, but it was only in 1916 that he turned to the subject in earnest. The magnificent nudes painted by the artist in the last three or four years of his life are very different from everything he created earlier. Women's images late Modigliani became more sensual and spontaneous, having lost their former sadness and contemplation. Working in this genre, the artist rarely resorted to the help of his girlfriends or mistresses - the only exceptions are one nude with Beatrice Hastings as a model and several similar things for which Jeanne Hebuterne posed. Usually paid models or casual acquaintances served as models for the artist. Modigliani gave preference to lying nudes (although this is not an exceptional position for him). He always portrayed the female body large, juicy, with arms thrown behind the head or bent legs.
At the time of Modigliani, the nude female nature had not yet become a commonplace in painting. She worried, even shocked. The image of pubic hair was considered especially obscene. But the creation of an erotic atmosphere was not Modigliani's end in itself; this, of course, is present in his canvases, but, in addition, they are elegant in composition and exquisite in color. First of all, they are works of art. Examples include Nude on a White Cushion (1917-1918), Seated Nude (ill. 6) undated, and Young Seated Woman (1918). An excellent example of the genre, combining purity and elegance of line, simplicity of composition, expression and deep eroticism - "Seated Nude" (1916). This is one of the first nudes of Modigliani, relating to his mature period. In his book (1984), dedicated to creativity artist, Douglas Heasle calls this picture "perhaps the most beautiful of Modigliani's nudes"1. The woman's face is stylized, but you can find similarities with Beatrice Hastings in it. At the time of the creation of the canvas, they were still living together. However, it is unlikely that Beatrice posed for the artist; most likely, Modigliani, as usual, invited a professional model for this. But in the process of work, Beatrice, of course, stood before his eyes. The elongated, sculptural face of the woman depicted is reminiscent of the African masks that Modigliani so admired, while the tilt of the head and lowered eyelashes echo the paintings usually exhibited at the Salon. Nevertheless, this work by Modigliani is completely original and is rightfully considered one of the pearls in the nude series, which subsequently glorified the artist.
“Reclining Nude” (1917-1918), Modigliani’s work is most often associated with the viewer precisely with his nude, and this masterpiece is an excellent example of the genre, combining purity and elegance of line, simplicity of composition, expression and deep eroticism.
Modigliani was an outstanding draftsman, so the main charm of the image is given by the line, gently describing the contours of the woman's body, her neck and the oval of the face. The smooth contours of the figure are emphasized by the elegant background of the picture, elegantly matched to the tone. The pose and facial features of the model are very intimate, but at the same time deliberately stylized, which is why the image loses its individuality and becomes collective. The arms and legs of the heroine of this work, cut off by the edge of the canvas, visually bring her closer to the viewer, further enhancing the erotic sound of the picture.
In addition to nudes, Modigliani's portraits are widely known. He said: “Man is what interests me. The human face is the highest creation of nature. For me, this is an inexhaustible source. Most often, Modigliani was posed by his close friends, thanks to which many of the artist’s canvases look like a curious gallery of representatives of the artistic world of that time, whose images captured the “golden age” of Parisian art. Modigliani left us portraits of the artists Diego Rivera, Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso and Chaim Soutine, sculptors Henri Lauren and Jacques Lipchitz, writers Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob. came to us and the only one self-portrait of Modigliani (ill. 7), written by him in 1919, a few months before his death.
Nudes and portraits painted by the artist at the end of his life mark milestone in history modern painting. Although the last portraits of Modigliani bear traces of emotional decline (which is not surprising, if you do not forget about how he lived at that time), they nevertheless retain the transparency and majesty inherent in the masters of the Renaissance.
But Modigliani did not bring fame in his lifetime. He was known only to a narrow circle of artists - the same as he, disinterestedly in love with art. And this, as a rule, does not bring money during life. Yes, Modigliani (like many of his friends) still waited for unconditional recognition, but this happened after his death. For his paintings, which he gave away for bread and wine, now they pay breathtaking money; V art galleries they occupy the most honorable places, and hundreds of books have been written about the artist himself. Ordinary story.
Conclusion
The painting style of Modigliani, with its decorative flatness, sharp brevity of composition, musicality of silhouette-linear rhythms, and saturation of color, was determined in the early 1910s. In his, as a rule, one-figure paintings - portraits and nudes - Modigliani created a special world of images, intimately individual and, at the same time, similar to a general melancholic self-absorption; their peculiar, subtly nuanced psychologism, enlightened poetry are combined with a constant, sometimes tragic sense of a person's insecurity in the world.
Modigliani managed to simultaneously establish himself as a realist and non-objective. His art meets the requirements of the purists, who insisted that the picture is only a plane on which colors are applied in a certain order; but at the same time he put into his canvases a rich human, sexual and social content. He reveals and hides, selects and brings, seduces and soothes. This inspired eclecticist - an aristocrat, a socialist and a sensualist in one - uses the techniques of both the masters of the Ivory Coast (whose statues amaze the imagination without arousing a sense of belonging) and the icon painters of Byzantium and the Early Renaissance (who touch us, but cannot shake us to the core). ). From all this, the quivering, exciting - in a word, unique - Modigliani is formed!
What remains of Modigliani seven decades after his death? Firstly, of course, the creative heritage, which is still subject to detailed study, and secondly, the legend that has become the property of millions.
The legend arose from the memoirs of people who knew the artist during his tragic life in Paris, and even more from books based on some amazing, but not always reliable second-hand or even third-hand information. The adventures of Modigliani are the subject of several mediocre novels and films.1
Alcohol and drugs may have been simply necessary for the physically weak, unfortunate and lonely foreigner in Paris, who also suffered from insecurity and bitter disappointments, but they by no means created and released his genius. Modigliani was almost always desperately poor, and more even because of his "terrible temper", which repelled possible patrons, than because of the complete indifference to him on the part of collectors. Debunking the “romantic legend of death from starvation, alcohol and, God knows, what metaphysical torments”2, the artist’s daughter Jeanne Modigliani blames everything, first of all, on tuberculosis, which he had been ill with throughout his life.
No matter how insufferable and irresponsible the artist may seem at times, he was basically - and all his friends are unanimous in this - a man of aristocratic behavior, a brilliant mind, widely educated, capable of good feelings and compassion. Given the limited duration - thirteen years - of his creative activity and all life circumstances, his achievements are amazing not only in quantitative but also in qualitative terms. In the book Modigliani and His Work (1956), Arthur Pfannstiel lists and describes 372 paintings by the artist created after his arrival in Paris in 1906. In the preface to the album "Amedeo Modigliani. Drawings and Sculpture (1965) Ambrogio Ceroni argues that quantity original paintings Modigliani - 222, which indicates a very rigorous approach to their assessment. Several early paintings by Modigliani have already been discovered in recent years, and not so long ago a number of very convincing authentic canvases from the Parisian period were put up for sale, not mentioned by either Pfannstiel or Ceroni.3 Unfortunately, the market was flooded with fakes under Modigliani, and some of them with such skill that they can mislead both the specialist and the collector. It is not surprising that the masters of falsification have stepped up their activities so much - the price for Modigliani's first-class work has risen to one hundred thousand dollars. As a result, a lot of "Modigliani" appeared, who are trying to reduce original tricks, developed by the master, to trivial formulas.
We will never know how many works did not reach us - how many of them were destroyed by the artist himself, but how many were lost.
Bibliography
Werner Alfred. Amedeo Modigliani (translated by Fateev). - St. Petersburg: ICAR, 1994. - 126 p., ill.
Vilenkin V.Ya. Amedeo Modigliani. - 2nd ed., corrected. and additional - M.: Art, 1989. - 175 p., L. ill. - (Life in art).
European painting XIII- XX centuries. encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Art, 1999. - 526 p., ill.
Modigliani. - M.: Publishing Center "Classics", 2001. - 64 p., ill. The world of masterpieces. 100 world names in art.
Art Gallery: Modigliani. - No. 26. - M., 2005. - 31 p.
Encyclopedia of World Painting / Comp. T.G. Petrovets, Yu.V. Sadomnikov. - M.: OLMA - PRESS, 2000. - 431 p.: ill.
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(1884-1920) Italian painter, graphic artist and sculptor
In modern consciousness, the appearance of Amedeo Modigliani was largely formed under the influence of the brilliant performance of the French actor Gerard Philippe in the film "Montparnasse-19". He created an image 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, an interesting artist will develop from a young man who will create his 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 to Modigliani's appeal to different forms art. Almost simultaneously with serious paintings, his sculptures appear.
Having chosen the path of a free artist for himself, 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, 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, since 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 brought up 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 was going on. 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."
The artist Amedeo Modigliani, the founder of the realistic depiction of the nude, a talented sculptor, painter and freethinker, was an iconic figure of his time. However, during his lifetime, the creator was famous not for his works, but for his dissolute lifestyle.
The beginning of the way
Amedeo Modigliani was born in Italy in a petty-bourgeois Jewish family. His parents had noble roots and gave their son a decent education. Amedeo from childhood grew up in an atmosphere saturated with the creativity of the Renaissance. Thanks to his mother, a native of France, he was well versed in poetry and philosophy, history and painting, and also mastered the French language, which would later help him live and create in Paris.
Before coming of age, Amedeo Modigliani was twice on the verge of death. First he fell ill with pleurisy, and then with typhus. Tormented by illness, in his delirium he saw the works of Italian masters of painting. This is what determined his life path. And already in 1898 he began to take lessons in private art school Guglielmo Micheli. But he was forced to interrupt his studies due to a disease that overcame him again. This time, Amedeo caught tuberculosis. After a short forced break, the future artist resumes his studies, but this time at the Free School of Nude Painting, and after that at the Venice Institute of Fine Arts.
Paris: a new stage of creativity
Mother always admired her talent younger son and contributed in every possible way creative development. So, in 1906, thanks to his mother, who raised money for her son, Amedeo went to Paris for inspiration and fame. Here he plunges into the creative atmosphere of Montmartre and gets acquainted with many creators of that time - Picasso, Utrillo, Jacob, Meidner.
In the capital of world art, Amedeo Modigliani is constantly experiencing financial difficulties. His plight is somewhat improved in 1907, when he meets Paul Alexander, friendship with whom he will carry through his whole life. Alexander patronizes the artist - he buys his works, organizes orders for portraits, as well as the first exhibition of Modigliani. However, fame and recognition still do not come.
Amedeo Modigliani devoted himself entirely to sculpture for some time. He works with stone blocks and marble. Brincusi, Epstein, Lipchitz had a great influence on the work of Modigliani at that time. In 1912, some of his works were even bought. But poor health and aggravated tuberculosis forced him to return to painting.
The artist continues to work during the First World War, to which he was not taken for health reasons. In 1917, an exhibition of Modigliani was opened, where he presented his works in the nude genre. However, local authorities recognized his works as indecent and literally a few hours after the opening they closed the exposition.
Very little is known about the subsequent period of the artist's life. Amedeo Modigliani died in early 1920 from tuberculous meningitis, which had triumphed over his life.
love stories
The artist was distinguished by the ardor of nature and amorousness. He admired female beauty, idolized and sang of her. It is known that in 1910 he had an affair with Anna Akhmatova, which lasted a year and a half. In 1914, another serious romance happened in his life. The bright and eccentric Beatrice Hastings was not only Amedeo's lover and muse, but also a promoter. Thanks to her scandalous articles about Modigliani, he gained some fame. True, not like brilliant artist but as a bohemian lover of alcohol and drugs.
After an affair with Beatrice, a young muse bursts into the artist's life - nineteen-year-old Jeanne Hebuterne. He sang her beauty in 25 portraits. Jeanne bore him a child, and when the artist found out about the muse's second pregnancy, he hurried to propose to her. But the couple did not have time to get married in the church because of the death of the artist. Unable to endure separation, the day after the death of her lover, Jeanne decides to commit suicide.
Characteristics of creativity
Amedeo Modigliani, whose photos do not convey even a hundredth of the artist's skill, was skilled in creating portraits. He recreated by smooth lines and strokes. His works combine seemingly incongruous things - expression and harmony, linearity and generality, plasticity and dynamism. His portraits were not like a reflection in a mirror or a photograph. Rather, they conveyed the inner feeling of Modigliani and were distinguished by elongated shapes and generalized color zones. He does not play with space. In the pictures, it seems to be compressed, conditional.
Modigliani is a descendant of the great philosopher Spinoza.
"Modigliani. Jew" - these are the words the artist introduced himself to strangers. He was always embarrassed by his nationality, but he chose the path not of denial, but of affirmation.
Amedeo had an heir, but he abandoned his son even before his birth.
The first surge in demand and sincere public interest in his work arose after the death of Modigliani, or rather, during his funeral.
B had a reputation as an indefatigable brawler and revelers, and he was not allowed into all establishments.
Amedeo had He could for hours on end quote the verses of the poets of the Renaissance and contemporary creators.
In fact, contemporaries knew little about the life of Amedeo Modigliani. The biography was recreated after his death from his mother's diaries, letters and stories of friends.
