2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Artist Amedeo Modigliani, the founder of the realistic depiction of nudes, 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 start of the journey
Amedeo Modigliani was born in Italy into 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 his 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 at the private art school of 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 onthis time at the Free School of Nude Painting, and later at the Venice Institute of Fine Arts.
Paris: a new stage of creativity
Mother always admired the talent of her youngest son and in every possible way contributed to his 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 devotes 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 he alth and aggravated tuberculosis forced him to return to painting.
The artist continues to work during the First World War, where he was not taken for he alth reasons. In 1917, an exhibition of Modigliani was opened, where he presented his work innude genre. However, local authorities recognized his work as indecent and literally a few hours after the opening closed the exposition.
Very little is known about the further 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 as a brilliant artist, but as a bohemian lover of alcohol and drugs.
After an affair with Beatrice, a young muse breaks 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 bear the separation, the day after the death of her lover, Zhanna decides to commit suicide.
Characteristic of creativity
Amedeo Modigliani, whose photos do not convey even a hundredth of the artist's skill, was skilled in creating portraits. He recreated lyrical images through the smoothness of lines and strokes. His work combinesseemingly incompatible 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.
Interesting facts
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 before he was born.
The first surge in demand for the artist's paintings and sincere public interest in his work arose after the death of Modigliani, or rather, during his funeral.
In Paris, the artist had a reputation as an irrepressible brawler and revelers, and he was not allowed into all establishments.
Amedeo had a phenomenal memory. He could spend hours quoting poetry from Renaissance and contemporary poets.
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 from friends.
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