Amedeo Clemente Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was born into a Jewish family at Livorno, in Tuscany. Livorno was still a relatively new city, by Italian standards, in the 

late 19th century. The Livorno that Modigliani knew was a bustling centre of commerce focused upon seafaring and shipwrighting, but its cultural 

history lay in being a refuge for those persecuted for their religion. His own maternal great-great-grandfather was one Solomon Garsin, a Jew who had 

immigrated to Livorno in the eighteenth century as a religious refugee.

Modigliani was the fourth child of Flaminio Modigliani and his wife, Eugenia Garsin. His father was in the money-changing business, but when the 

business went bankrupt, the family lived in dire poverty. In fact, Amedeo's birth saved the family from certain ruin, as, according to an ancient law, 

creditors could not seize the bed of a pregnant woman or a mother with a newborn child. When bailiffs entered the family home, just as Eugenia went 

into labour, the family protected their most valuable assets by piling them on top of the expectant mother.

Modigliani had a particularly close relationship with his mother, who taught her son at home until he was ten. Beset with health problems after an 

attack of pleurisy when he was about eleven, a few years later he developed a case of typhoid fever. When he was roughly sixteen he was taken ill with 

pleurisy again, and it was then that he contracted the tuberculosis which was to eventually claim his life. Each time it was his mother Eugenia's 

intensive care of him which pulled him through. After Modigliani had recovered from the second bout of pleurisy, his mother took him on a tour of 

southern Italy: Naples, Capri, Rome and Amalfi, then back north to Florence and Venice.

His mother was, in many ways, instrumental in his ability to pursue art as a vocation. When he was eleven years of age, she had noted in her diary:

"The child's character is still so unformed that I cannot say what I think of it. He behaves like a spoiled child, but he does not lack intelligence. 

We shall have to wait and see what is inside this chrysalis. Perhaps an artist?"

Art student years

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 launching him on a course of studying art would impinge upon his other studies, his mother indulged the 

young Modigliani's passion for the subject.

At the age of fourteen, while sick with the typhoid fever, he raved in his delirium that he wanted, above all else, to see the paintings in the Palazzo 

Pitti and the Uffizi in Florence. As Livorno's local museum only housed a sparse few paintings by the Italian Renaissance masters, the tales he had 

heard about the great works held in Florence intrigued him, and it was a source of considerable despair to him, in his sickened state, that he might 

never get the chance to view them in person. His mother promised that she would take him to Florence herself, the moment he was recovered. Not only did 

she fulfil this promise, but she also undertook to enroll him with the best painting master in Livorno, Guglielmo Micheli.

Micheli and the Macchiaioli

Head Of A Woman With A Hat - Amedeo Modigliani

Head Of A Woman With A Hat 

Modigliani worked in Micheli's Art School from 1898 to 1900. Here his earliest formal artistic instruction took place in an atmosphere deeply 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 still be seen: artists such as Giovanni Boldini figure just as much in this nascent work as do those of Toulouse-Lautrec.

Modigliani showed great promise while with Micheli, and only ceased his studies when he was forced to, by the onset of tuberculosis.

In 1901, whilst in Rome, Modigliani admired the work of Domenico Morelli, a painter of melodramatic Biblical studies and scenes from great literature. 

It is ironic that he should be so struck by Morelli, as this painter had served as an inspiration for a group of iconoclasts who went known by the 

title "the Macchiaioli" (from macchia -"dash of colour", or, more derogatively, "stain"), and Modigliani had already been exposed to the influences of 

the Macchiaioli. This minor, localized art movement was possessed of a need to react against the bourgeois stylings of the academic genre painters. 

While sympathetically connected to (and actually pre-dating) the French Impressionists, the Macchiaioli did not make the same impact upon international 

art culture as did the followers of Monet, and are today largely forgotten outside of Italy.

Modigliani's 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. Micheli's 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, characterized the 

movement. Micheli also tried to encourage his pupils to paint en plein air, but Modigliani never really got a taste for this style of working, 

sketching in cafes, but preferring to paint indoors, and especially in his own studio. Even when compelled to paint landscapes (three are known to 

exist), Modigliani chose a proto-Cubist palette more akin to Cezanne than to the Macchiaioli.

While with Micheli, Modigliani not only studied landscape, but also portraiture, still-life, and the nude. His fellow students recall that the latter 

was where he displayed his greatest talent, and apparently this was not an entirely academic pursuit for the teenager: when not painting nudes, he was 

occupied with seducing the household maid.

Despite his rejection of the Macchiaioli approach, Modigliani nonetheless 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 Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 

Fattori himself would often visit the studio, and approved of the young artist's innovations.

In 1902, Modigliani continued what was to be a life-long infatuation with life drawing, enrolling in the Accademia di Belle Arti (Scuola Libera di 

Nudo, or "Free School of Nude Studies") in Florence. A year later while still suffering from tuberculosis, he moved to Venice, where he registered to 

study at the Istituto di Belle Arti.

It is in Venice that he first smoked hashish and, rather than studying, began to spend time frequenting disreputable parts of the city. The impact of 

these lifestyle choices upon his developing artistic style is open to conjecture, although these choices do seem to be more than simple teenage 

rebellion, or the cliched hedonism and bohemianism that was almost expected of artists of the time; his pursuit of the seedier side of life appears to 

have roots in his appreciation of radical philosophies, such as those of Nietzsche.

Early literary influences

Reclining Nude I - Amedeo Modigliani

Head Of A Woman With A Hat 

Having been exposed to erudite philosophical literature as a young boy under the tutelage of Isaco Garsin, his maternal grandfather, he continued to read and be influenced through his art studies by the writings of Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Carducci, Comte de Lautreamont, and others, and developed the 

belief that the only route to true creativity was through defiance and disorder.

Letters that he wrote from his 'sabbatical' in Capri in 1901 clearly indicate that he is being more and more influenced by the thinking of Nietzsche. 

In these letters, he advised friend Oscar Ghiglia,

"(hold sacred all) which can exalt and excite your intelligence... (and) ... seek to provoke ... and to perpetuate ... these fertile stimuli, because 

they can push the intelligence to its maximum creative power."

The work of Lautreamont was equally influential at this time. This doomed poet's Les Chants de Maldoror became the seminal work for the Parisian 

Surrealists of Modigliani's generation, and the book became Modigliani's favourite to the extent that he learnt it by heart. The poetry of Lautreamont 

is characterized by the juxtaposition of fantastical elements, and by sadistic imagery; the fact that Modigliani was so taken by this text in his early 

teens gives a good indication of his developing tastes. Baudelaire and D'Annunzio similarly appealed to the young artist, with their interest in 

orrupted beauty, and the expression of that insight through Symbolist imagery.

Modigliani wrote to Ghiglia extensively from Capri, where his mother had taken him to assist in his recovery from the tuberculosis. These letters are a 

sounding board for the developing ideas brewing in Modigliani's mind. Ghiglia was seven years Modigliani's senior, and it is likely that it was he who 

showed the young man the limits of his horizons in Livorno. Like all precocious teenagers, Modigliani preferred the company of older companions, and 

Ghiglia's role in his adolescence was to be a sympathetic ear as he worked himself out, principally in the convoluted letters that he regularly sent, 

and which survive today.

" Dear friend

I write to pour myself out to you and to affirm myself to myself.

I am the prey of great powers that surge forth and then disintegrate...

A bourgeois told me today - insulted me - that I or at least my brain was lazy. It did me good. I should like such a warning every morning upon 

awakening: but they cannot understand us nor can they understand life..."

Paris

Portrait of Maude Abrantes -  Amedeo Modigliani

Portrait of Maude Abrantes 

Arrival

In 1906 Modigliani moved to Paris, then the focal point of the avant-garde. In fact, his arrival at the centre of artistic experimentation coincided 

with the arrival of two other foreigners who were also to leave their marks upon the art world: Gino Severini and Juan Gris.

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 characterized by generalized poverty, Modigliani himself presented-initially, at least-as one would expect 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.

When he first arrived in Paris, he wrote home regularly to his mother, he sketched his nudes at the Colarossi school, and he drank wine in moderation. 

He was at that time considered by those who knew him as a bit reserved, verging on the asocial. He is noted to have commented, upon meeting Picasso 

who, at the time, was wearing his trademark workmen's clothes, that even though the man was a genius, that did not excuse his uncouth appearance.

Transformation

Within a year of arriving in Paris, however, his demeanour and reputation had changed dramatically. He transformed himself from a dapper academician 

artist into a sort of prince of vagabonds.

The poet and journalist Louis Latourette, upon visiting the artist's previously well-appointed studio after his transformation, discovered the place in 

upheaval, the Renaissance reproductions discarded from the walls, the plush drapes in disarray. Modigliani was already an alcoholic and a drug addict 

by this time, and his studio reflected this. Modigliani's behaviour at this time sheds some light upon his developing style as an artist, in that the 

studio had become almost a sacrificial effigy for all that he resented about the academic art that had marked his life and his training up to that 

point.

Not only did he remove all the trappings of his bourgeois heritage from his studio, but he also set about destroying practically all of his own early 

work. He explained this extraordinary course of actions to his astonished neighbours thus:

"Childish baubles, done when I was a dirty bourgeois."

The motivation for this violent rejection of his earlier self is the subject of considerable speculation. The self-destructive tendencies may have 

stemmed from his tuberculosis and the knowledge (or presumption) that the disease had essentially marked him for an early death; within the artists' 

quarter, many faced the same sentence, and the typical response was to set about enjoying life while it lasted, principally by indulging in self-

destructive actions. For Modigliani such behavior may have been a response to a lack of recognition; he sought the company of artists such as Utrillo 

and Soutine, seeking acceptance and validation for his work from his colleagues.

Modigliani's behavior stood out even in these Bohemian surroundings: he carried on frequent affairs, drank heavily, and used absinthe and hashish. 

While drunk, he would sometimes strip himself naked at social gatherings. He became the epitome of the tragic artist, creating a posthumous legend 

almost as well-known as that of Vincent van Gogh.

During the 1920s, in the wake of Modigliani's career and spurred on by comments by Andre Salmon crediting hashish and absinthe with the genesis of 

Modigliani's style, many hopefuls tried to emulate his "success" by embarking on a path of substance abuse and bohemian excess. Salmon claimed-

erroneously-that whereas Modigliani was a totally pedestrian artist when sober,

"...from the day that he abandoned himself to certain forms of debauchery, an unexpected light came upon him, transforming his art. From that day on, 

he became one who must be counted among the masters of living art."

While this propaganda served as a rallying cry to those with a romantic longing to be a tragic, doomed artist, these strategies did not produce unique 

artistic insights or techniques in those who did not already have them.

In fact, art historians suggest that it is entirely possible for Modigliani to have achieved even greater artistic heights had he not been immured in, 

and destroyed by, his own self-indulgences. We can only speculate what he might have accomplished had he emerged intact from his self-destructive 

explorations.

Output

Portrait Of Anna Zborovska - Amedeo Modigliani

Portrait Of Anna Zborovska 

During his early years in Paris, Modigliani worked at a furious pace. He was constantly sketching, making as many as a hundred drawings a day. However, 

many of his works were lost-destroyed by him as inferior, left behind in his frequent changes of address, or given to girlfriends who did not keep 

hem.

He was first influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, but around 1907 he became fascinated with the work of Paul Cezanne. Eventually he developed his 

own unique style, one that cannot be adequately categorized with other artists.

He met the first serious love of his life, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, in 1910, when he was 26. They had studios in the same building, and although 

21-year-old Anna was recently married, they began an affair.[ citation needed ] Tall (Modigliani was only 5 foot 5 inches) with dark hair (like 

Modigliani's), pale skin and grey-green eyes, she embodied Modigliani's aesthetic ideal and the pair became engrossed in each other. After a year, 

however, Anna returned to her husband.

Sculpture

In 1909, Modigliani returned home to Livorno, sickly and tired from his wild lifestyle. Soon he was back in Paris, this time renting a studio in 

Montparnasse. He originally saw himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, and was encouraged to continue after Paul Guillaume, an ambitious young 

art dealer, took an interest in his work and introduced him to sculptor Constantin Brancusi.

Although a series of Modigliani's sculptures were exhibited in the Salon d'Automne of 1912, by 1914 he abandoned sculpting and focused solely on his 

painting, a move precipitated by the difficulty in acquiring stone, and by Modigliani's physical buterne moved to Nice, she became pregnant and on November 29, 1918 gave birth to a daughter whom they named Jeanne (1918-1984).

Nice

During a trip to Nice, conceived and organized by Leopold Zborovski, Modigliani, Foujita and other artists tried to sell their works to rich tourists. 

Modigliani managed to sell a few pictures but only for a few francs each. Despite this, during this time he produced most of the paintings that later 

became his most popular and valued works.

During his lifetime he sold a number of his works, but never for any great amount of money. What funds he did receive soon vanished for his habits.

In May 1919 he returned to Paris, where, with Hebuterne and their daughter, he rented an apartment in the rue de la Grande Chaumiere. While there, both 

Jeanne Hebuterne and Amedeo Modigliani painted portraits of each other, and of themselves.

Death

In 1920, after not hearing from him for several days, his downstairs neighbor checked on the family and found Modigliani in bed delirious and holding 

onto Hebuterne who was nearly nine months pregnant. They summoned a doctor, but little could be done because Modigliani was dying of the then-incurable 

disease tubercular meningitis.Although he continued to paint, Modigliani's health was deteriorating rapidly, and his alcohol-induced blackouts became 

more frequent.

Modigliani died penniless and destitute-managing only one solo exhibition in his life and giving his work away in exchange for meals in restaurants. 

Since his death his reputation has soared. Nine novels, a play, a documentary and three feature films have been devoted to his life. (From Wikipedia)