The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 29. The Portrait of Andre Rouveyre (1915), Modigliani Institute Korea

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.

The 29th work to introduce for this week is “The Portrait of Andre Rouveyre (1915)” painted in Paris, France.

This work is a portrait of an expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 65 x 42.5 cm.

Andre Rouveyre was an early 20th-century French writer, caricaturist and graphic artist who was born on March 29, 1879 and died on December 18, 1962. He was also the son of Édouard Rouveyre, a Parisian publisher who lived in the Rue des Saints-Pères. At the time, a member of several culturally elite circles, Rouveyre is remembered as a model for paintings by Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani.

In 1896, Rouveyre entered the Beaux-Arts in Paris and became one of Gustave Moreau's last students. Although he left school three years after enrollment, Rouveyre met Henri Matisse and the two became friends in Moreau's atelier. Then the two continued a lifelong friendship including hundreds of letters’ exchange. 

To make a living, Rouveyre also became a cartoonist for the press and worked on numerous periodicals. Rouveyre's own works show a mixture of early Minimalism reminiscent of Matisse with Expressionism, and he died in December 1962 in Barbizon, France.

In this work, Modigliani portrayed Rouveyre's face in an angled style that is different from his typical style.

In 1914, Modigliani abandoned sculpting, to which he devoted almost five years, but when he painted this work in 1915, it seems that he still had a regret about the sculpture. Such regret of him for the sculpting was reflected in the face of Rouveyre in this work. Modigliani also made the model's angled face stand out by using lines to divide the background.

The typical styles of Modigliani are a long neck, an elongated body, and eyes with no pupils. In this work, the model's one eye has a pupil and the other eye is empty, which is one of Modigliani's typical styles. However, the color of the empty eye without a pupil is black, which is the same as that of the background, giving the feeling of seeing the background through the empty eye.

A long neck, one of Modigliani's typical styles, is also expressed in this work.

In general, if Modigliani painted model’s eyes by his unique style, he didn’t express the model’s neck elongated. In other words, Modigliani usually didn’t express his unique styles of the eyes and neck at the same time in a work.

However, this work is characterized by the simultaneous appearance of the eyes without a pupil and a long neck.

Also, in this work, the model's aquiline nose is heavily tilted to the right side as well as the small mouth is to the right. This expression seems to compensate for the rise of the model's left eye and eyebrows over the right eye and eyebrows. It also seems to be Modigliani’s intended attempt to express the stubborn nature of the model.

Finally, Modigliani's another preferred style is also well represented in this work, which treats the colors of the attire and the background equally so that the viewers can concentrate on the model.

Thank you.

Korean Blog