Portrait of a Tortured Artists: Modigliani
Recently, My spouse and i had to locate a house warming gift for some friends but we were completely out of ideas. At a similar event they'd given me with a quaich, a Scottish symbol of eternal friendship, and so i believed I needed to get something more special than a greeting card.
My friends are an out of the ordinary couple you simply can't pigeonhole. They're smart, witty and true individuals and considering they were relocating to a brand new home, I felt a decorative item would be appropriate, but what to pick? My own taste runs to items from the ancient world, such as {Roman art} and Greek statues. I put in a lot of time in search of something outstanding, something that had a meaning, but Aphrodite didn't seem to be right, an Alexander bust was something I knew our friends already had and Hippocrates would have been well suited for a doctor, but not for an IT professional married to a lawyer. What I wanted was something the same but also, like my friends, very different.
My ultimate pick was a Modigliani sculpture, an elongated female head sculpture really different from the traditional statues I had considered but precisely the same. Established yet primitive simultaneously Modigliani art work is clearly inspired by African Masks and Polynesian sculpture, clean and rounded whilst prolonged and angular, it's the contradiction that helps make the sculpture so remarkable.
Modigliani's tale is a heartbreaking one. Born in 1884, his ability for art was apparent from early on, nonetheless his life was destroyed by tuberculosis. His mother made certain he had the best teaching, and he was very well respected by his art teacher, though he formulated his own individual style which has more in keeping with the angular Art Deco movement yet to come than the curvaceous Art Nouveau still in fashion. Most of all, it's still a style of it's own, quite unique.
Like many now well-known artists Modigliani was basically undiscovered during own life. He generated an enormous amount of work, often up to a hundred paintings per day, however most of the time he offered these to close friends or girlfriends that did not keep them. It appears as if he understood his life would be short, and maybe because of that, he took to drugs and alcohol, to the point where many explained his one of a kind style had been due entirely to hashish, though this was clearly untrue. He was a follower of Nietzsche and Baudelaire and came to the realization true creativity required disorder and defiance. At one point in his career he destroyed a lot of his earlier works declaring them far inferior.
As time went by his well being became worse. He was refused for military service in the First World War and continued to reside in Paris, not knowing if the next payment of his allowance would arrive. He was good looking and affable and women enjoyed him, but although he was able to sell a few paintings during his life, he never produced any money from them.
He passed away a pauper, from meningitis, his bedding tarnished with oil from a sardine can, one and only thing he had still left to eat. As always, there had been a female involved. Much more youthful than Modigliani and on the day he perished nearly nine months pregnant with their second child. Right after his passing the woman's family took her home and the girl walked back out of a window, killing herself and the unborn infant.
The stories regarding Modigliani's life are full of contradiction. A few have tried to say that the girl, Jeanne Hebuterne was simply another passing fancy for Modigliani, however their daughter's analysis showed the girl had been an artist in her own right. Her ssculptures were shown for the very first time in an exhibition in 2000.
As for the Modigliani art we settled on, the sculpture is elongated and abstract depiction of a woman's head that is both soft yet striking. Unfortunately we cannot know who she is intended to be; there's no tale unless we make one. Virtually no distinct style of decor is needed. The Modigliani bust would look good anyplace.
Personally, part of the selling point of this object as a gift is actually the likeness between the artisan and my friends. Each funny, brilliant and captivating, a rebel and an individual. There the characteristics between them end.
