How are you?
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.
The 21st work to introduce for this
week is “Caryatid (c.1912)”.
This work is a nude painting of an
expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 72.9 x 50.1
cm.
Currently, the “Kunstsammlung
Nordrhein-Westfalen” in Düsseldorf, Germany possesses this work.
“Caryatid” is a sculpture of a
female figure and serves as an architectural support replacing a column
supporting the entablature, which is the horizontal part of the upper part of
the column, on her hand.
The Greek word
"karyatides" means “maidens of Karyai”, an ancient village of
Peloponnese.
In Karyai, there was a temple
dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis.
"As Karyatis, she was
delighted in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai. Those Karyatides ecstatically
danced carrying on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing
plants”.
Modigliani drew more than 70
drawings for Caryatid.
The style of these works shows that
Modigliani was fascinated by the wide variety of arts considered to be
‘primitive’, including “African” art.
Though not realized, Modigliani is
said to have envisioned a 'temple of humanity' surrounded by hundreds of
Caryatid.
A number of various drawings of
Modigliani as a sculptor at the time were not just preliminary sketches of
particular sculptures, but also a means of generating ideas for his later
sculptures.
As in many sketches, the face of
this work evokes ancient Egyptian or Mycenaean sculpture, and the body is
almost geometrically divided.
The model's hair style in this
work, is very similar to the style used in classical Greek sculptures, showing
more Mediterranean than African.
The arms look elongated and strong,
but the body is long and thin, and the waist is bent at an angle that is
difficult to support the weight of the stone.
The woman's legs also look very
strong, like her arms, but her bent waist seems to be in danger of breaking
soon due to the weight of the stones she supports, and therefore the woman
looks unstable.
In addition, this work is a nude
painting of a women but depicts a vision of power and tranquility despite the
unstable waist rather than the sensuality of the woman.
The work is known to be inspired by
the Russian female poet “Anna Akhmatova”, who was once a lover of Modigliani.
Later, Akhmatova said about
Modigliani as follow.
"I was lucky because I met
Modigliani before everyone else. Everyone who remembers Modigliani met him in
1914 and 1915, but I met him in 1910."
She often modelled for Modigliani
and said as follow.
"What Modigliani was
interested in was not a model's appearance, but a pose. He drew several
drawings, representing me as a dancer or an Egyptian princess."
Her slender, elegant body,
glamorous face with an aquiline nose and short hair are well represented in
many drawings and sculptures by Modigliani.
After breaking up with Modigliani,
she lived a painful and turbulent life due to the Soviet’s political
persecution, and as a result, she was able to preserve only one drawing of
Modigliani.
In this work, you can see a
dark-colored man's head in the back of a kneeling woman, and some critics claim
that this man is “Maldoror”, the fictional main character of Modigliani's
favorite literary work.
Maldoror is the main character of
the “Les Chants de Maldoror”, a prose poem written by the Uruguayan-born French
writer "Comte de Lautréamont" between 1868 and 1869.
In this work, Maldoror emerged as
an evil figure who gave up the conventional morality.
It was not well known at
the time of its first publication, but was rediscovered by surrealist artists
in the early 20th century.
Another interesting fact is that by
turning this work 180 degrees, you can discover a new painting, such as an
Egyptian sculpture, and perhaps Modigliani seems to continue testing while thinking
about how to draw Caryatid.
Thank you.
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