Modigliani's painting "Portrait of Jeanne Ebyutern before the doors" - the last masterpiece of the last painter of Bohemia. Biography of the great creator

The drawings he used to pay for a glass of wine are now the pride of the richest private collections and the largest art museums. Modigliani's painting at any auction attracts more attention than the paintings of his contemporaries, higher than those estimated during his lifetime. His sculptures, picturesque portraits and expressive, sensual "nudes" stood out even among the creations of the young geniuses of the "Paris school" of the beginning of the century.

Modern definition of Modigliani as an expressionist seems controversial and incomplete. His work is a unique and unique phenomenon, like his whole short tragic life.

Modi means "accursed" ...

The life of Modigliani was composed by the legends of contemporaries, and many of his own inventions. For example, he spoke of his ancestors as rich bankers, the "purses" of the pope himself. And he also called himself a descendant of the great rebel - philosopher Benedikt Spinoza, although he died childless.

But the real circumstances of the beginning of the artist's life were unusual. Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was born in 1884 in the Italian Livorno, in the family of a Jewish merchant. The father of the future artist went bankrupt and before the very birth of Amedeo, the bailiffs sent by creditors came to the house. Under the then Italian laws, the maternity was considered inviolable, and all the valuables, including some furniture, were laid on the bed of the pregnant woman. Evgenia Grasen, the mother of Amedeo, always considered this case a bad omen for her beloved son.

She was a well-educated and spiritually developed person and it was she who supported the son's desire for painting. This attitude to Amedeo's hobby came about, as another family legend says, when she heard the names of the Renaissance painters in the disconnected delirium of a son who fell ill with typhus. A distinct influence of one of them, Sandro Boticelli, will be found by art historians in the paintings of the mature Modigliani.

Years of Discipleship

Since the age of fourteen, Modigliani has received an art education in the private studio of Guillermo Michele in Livorno, the Free School of Nude Painting in Florence, the Institute of Fine Arts in Venice.

In museums and churches, he studies canvases and frescoes of old masters, at exhibitions - contemporary painting of the Impressionists and Symbolists. Many people mark his general high culture, reading. He knew by heart a lot of poems - from Dante to Verlaine.

In Venice, the beginning of another Modigliani was laid. They say that it was here that he became addicted to hashish, was fond of mysticism, attended spiritualistic sessions. Here began to manifest the effects of childhood illnesses, he had to interrupt the art of painting for the treatment of the lungs.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Paris was the center of attraction for young artists. A real international brotherhood of artists and poets was formed there, which were excited by new ideas. There in 1906, Modigliani arrived.

Paris School

Modi, as they began to call him in Paris, quickly became his own among the inhabitants of Montmartre. A young handsome man with exquisite manners, a favorite of women, who could wear a worn suit with royal grace, aroused interest from the first minutes of acquaintance. Among his close friends were Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Marc Chagall, Maurice Utrillo - stars of new art.

Each of them could say his own, a new word in art and achieved recognition. Abstractionism, cubism seemed the best way to express the impression of a rapidly changing world. The legacy of Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, was used in a new way, many imitators appeared at Matisse, Van Gogh, Gauguin. A rare artist retained his identity in the pursuit of success and material well-being. Such was Modi.

Of course, he absorbed the legacy of the past and new ideas. Acquainted with the sculptor Konstantin Brancusi, he became interested in sculpture. His stone heads, which he called "the pillars of tenderness," have explicit references to the primitive art of Africa, which at that time delighted many. But this is not a direct analogy of ritual masks, they have their own, unearthly and detached grandeur, noticeable even in small sizes.

Modigliani has almost no landscapes, no still lifes. He was interested only in man. And in a virtuoso graphic, and in an amazing painting, he was looking for a reflection of the personality of the model. Modigliani's painting with nudity is also a portrait, fascinating with subtle nuances of characters. With the help of complex color combinations and expressive lines, the artist tells amazing stories about the people he met, expresses his feelings for the world around him. The least his manner of portraying elongated, refined women's faces, figures with a complex, often painful bend or turning of the body reflects the violent nature of the artist - "idlers idle", which some considered Modi.

Legends of Montmartre

About his drunken debauches, countless love adventures, drug trances remember with delight or with hatred both friends and envious persons. Subsequently, some explained the rampage of Mody with his awareness of the short duration of his stay on Earth. Periodic exacerbations of tuberculosis, long hungry times, miserable conditions carried out vitality, and Amedeo did not save them for a serene existence in old age. His life was ravaged by visitors to smoky cafes in Montmartre. These legends, often exaggerated, became part of the Parisian image of Modigliani.

But this image is much more complicated. There are memories of his kind attitude towards those who are in an even more distressed state, about his cherished attitude towards the mother. And the amount of work done in recent years speaks of inspirational and hard work. His constant companion in walks is an album filled with virtuosic drawings and sketches.

His confidence in his talent, in his own style, in the correct approach to creativity amazes him. Modigliani's painting is a slow-moving commodity. He lived at the expense of rare connoisseurs, who saw his skill. But he did not want to change his manner for the sake of haggling tastes. And among his colleagues, Modigliani increasingly received real recognition.

The Last Angel

Modi loved women. For the last penny he bought a bouquet of violets for his next model. He admired the female body on his "nude." Female portraits of Modigliani, where he portrayed unearthly faces with almond-shaped eyes without pupils and without a bottom - an explanation in love.

A beautiful story of acquaintance with Modigliani is in the hands of the great Anna Akhmatova. In it there are long walks around Paris, bouquets of flowers and poems, passion in the elastic and precise line of her body in the master's drawings. Modigliani's portrait of Akhmatova was preserved by her as a great jewel and accompanied to her death.

In 1917, Amedeo met a very young artist from a happy family Jeanne Ebutern. She became a civil wife of the artist, gave birth to his daughter, who, having grown up, wrote the most truthful book about Modigliani. Jeanne became part of the legend, at the end of January 1920 stepping into the opening of the sixth floor window the day after her husband's funeral.

She was pregnant with a second child, but she did not want to live without her. Modigliani's painting "Portrait of Jeanne Eubutern before the doors" - one of the last masterpieces of the master. No wonder some thought that the artist depicts in the portraits not only the past and present, but also the future of man. In the guise of Jeanne, the calm humility of the future mother before the future, but in a slightly tense gesture of hands there is the birth of a future wave of wings for the farewell tragic flight ...

Life is the best playwright

He was called the last artist of Parisian bohemia. In numerous verses, prose, and films about Modigliani, sometimes bright moments of his short earthly path are plastered to vulgarity. But the main thing is that Modigliani is an artist, and it is difficult to distort the truth of his talent, the eternal novelty of his particular outlook on life.