Amedeo Modigliani - Delphi Complete Paintings of Amedeo Modigliani (Illustrated)

Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) Contents Delphi Classics 2016 Version 1 Masters of Art Series Amedeo Modigliani By Delphi Classics, 2016

His mother, Eugnie Garsin, who was born and raised in Marseille, was descended from an intellectual family of Sephardic ancestry that for generations had lived along the Mediterranean coastline. Modiglianis father, Flaminio, was a member of a family of successful businessmen and entrepreneurs. Modigliani was the fourth child, whose birth coincided with the disastrous financial collapse of his fathers business interests. A sickly child, Modigliani was taken seriously ill when he was sixteen-years old, contracting the tuberculosis which would later claim his life. After Modigliani recovered from the second bout of pleurisy, his mother took him on a tour of southern Italy: Naples, Capri, Rome and Amalfi, then north to Florence and Venice. In many ways, she would become instrumental in his ability to pursue art as a vocation.

Modigliani is known to have drawn and painted from a very early age, and thought himself already a painter, his mother wrote, even before beginning formal studies. Despite her misgivings that a course of studying art would intrude upon his other studies, his mother indulged his passion for the subject. In time, Modiglianis mother agreed to enrol him with the best painting master in Livorno, Guglielmo Micheli. Here his earliest formal artistic instruction took place in an atmosphere steeped in a study of the styles and themes of nineteenth century Italian art. In his earliest Parisian work, traces of this influence, and that of his studies of Renaissance art, can be clearly noted. Modigliani showed great promise while with Micheli, ceasing his studies only when he was forced to by the onset of tuberculosis.

In 1901, whilst in Rome, Modigliani was attracted to the work of Domenico Morelli, a painter of dramatic religious and literary scenes. Morelli had served as an inspiration for a group of iconoclasts that were known by the title the Macchiaioli (from macchia dash of colour), and Modigliani had already been exposed to the influences of the Macchiaioli. These artists reacted against the bourgeois stylings of the academic genre painters. Modiglianis connection with the movement was through Guglielmo Micheli, his first art teacher. Micheli was not only a Macchiaiolo himself, but had been a pupil of the famous Giovanni Fattori, a founder of the movement. Michelis work, however, was so fashionable and the genre so commonplace that the young Modigliani reacted against it, preferring to ignore the obsession with landscape that, as with French Impressionism, characterised the movement.

While with Micheli, Modigliani studied not only landscape, but also portraiture, still life and the nude. He found favour with his teacher, who referred to him as Superman, a pet name reflecting the fact that Modigliani was not only quite adept at his art, but also that he regularly quoted from Nietzsches Thus Spoke Zarathustra . In 1906, Modigliani moved to Paris, then the focal point of the avant-garde. He settled in Le Bateau-Lavoir, a commune for penniless artists in Montmartre, renting himself a studio in Rue Caulaincourt. Even though this artists quarter of Montmartre was characterised by generalised poverty, Modigliani appeared initially, at least very much the son of a family trying to maintain the appearances of its lost financial standing to present: his wardrobe was dapper without ostentation and the studio he rented was appointed in a style appropriate to someone with a finely attuned taste in plush drapery and Renaissance reproductions. He soon made efforts to assume the guise of the bohemian artist, but even in his brown corduroys, scarlet scarf and large black hat, he continued to appear as if he were slumming it, having fallen upon harder times.

The early Portrait of Pedro , completed in 1909, is believed to feature a Spanish immigrant printer or typographer, who was one of the artists early acquaintances in Paris. At this date, Modigliani still considered himself a sculptor, rather than a painter, though early indications can be seen that he already had a firm grasp of typical painting conventions, unrestricted by sculpting mannerisms. Like many of the artists later, more famous portraits, he employs even lighting, with no shadow, and we can also see subtle distortions of facial features, which would later dominate his work. The range of hues in the depiction of skin, however, signifies a depth of expression that would not be seen in the later canvases. Detail Detail