Modigliani: Tortured Artist
Recently, I needed to find a house warming present for some friends but we were totally out of ideas. At a similar special occasion they’d given us with a quaich, a Scottish symbol of eternal friendship, so i was feeling We should get something beyond just a greeting card.
My friends really are an unusual couple you simply can’t classify easily. They are surely intelligent, humorous and true individuals and because they were moving in to a new house, I felt a decorative subject could be ideal, but what to pick? My own preference runs to pieces from the ancient world, like {Roman art} and Greek sculpture. I spent ages searching for something symbolic, something with a story, but Aphrodite didn’t seem to be right, an Alexander bust was something I knew they already had and Hippocrates would have been ideal for a doctor, but not for an IT professional and a lawyer. What I needed was something the same and also, like my friends, very different.
My ultimate pick was a Modigliani sculpture, an elongated female head sculpture very different from the traditional statues I’d thought about yet precisely the same. Established and primitive simultaneously Modigliani artwork is clearly inspired by African Masks and Polynesian statues, sleek and curved whilst long and angular, it’s the contradiction that makes the sculpture so unforgettable.
Modigliani’s story is a tragic one. Born in 1884, his ability for painting was clear from his childhood, however his life was destroyed by tuberculosis. His mother made certain he had the best quality education, and he was very well respected by his art teacher, though he created his own individual style which has more in keeping with the angular Art Deco movement yet to come than the curvaceous Art Nouveau still fashionable. Most of all, it’s even now a style of it’s own, quite unique.
Like countless now famous artists Modigliani was basically unknown in his own life. He produced a huge quantity of work, sometimes up to a hundred paintings each day, however in many cases he presented these to close friends or girlfriends that did not keep them. It appears as if he knew his life would be short, and maybe because of that, he took to drugs and alcohol, to the stage where some explained his one of a kind style had been due entirely to hashish, however this was obviously not true. He was a follower of Nietzsche and Baudelaire and came to the conclusion genuine originality involved disorder and defiance. At some point in his career he demolished nearly all his earlier art declaring them substandard.
As time went by his well being became even worse. He was refused for military service in the First World War and continued to live in Paris, never knowing if the next payment of his allowance would appear. He was attractive and charming and women enjoyed him, but even though he was able to sell a few art works in the course of his life, he never produced any money from these.
He died quite penniless, from meningitis, his bedding tarnished with oil from a sardine can, the one thing he had remaining to eat. As always, there was a woman involved. Much more youthful than Modigliani and on the day he perished almost 9 months pregnant with their second child. After his passing the woman’s family took her home and the lady stepped backwards out of a window, killing herself and the unborn infant.
The stories regarding Modigliani’s life are brimming with contradiction. Some have attempted to imply that the woman, Jeanne Hebuterne had been merely one more passing fad for Modigliani, but their daughter’s research confirmed the woman was a painter off considerable skill. Her statues had been shown for the first time in an exhibition in 2000.
As for the Modigliani art we chose, the sculpture itself is angular and abstract depiction of a woman’s head that is both striking and soft. Unfortunately we cannot find out who she’s intended to be; there isn’t any tale unless we make one. Virtually no specific type of interior decoration is required. The Modigliani bust would be welcome anywhere you want it.
For me, a part of the attraction of the product as a gift is the similarity between the artist and my friends. Equally funny, clever and entertaining, a rebel and an individual. There the commonalities between them end.