How are you?
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.
The 31st work to introduce for this week is “Beatrice Hastings (1915)”.
This work is a portrait of an expressionist style and an oil painting on paper with the size of 69 x 49 cm.
Modigliani left the signature "modigliani" on the bottom right of the work, which is currently owned by private collection.
Beatrice Hastings was an English writer, poet, and literary critic and the pen name of Emily Alice Haigh.
A columnist for the British weekly magazine, “New Age”, she moved to Paris in 1914 as a correspondent for Paris.
She was a woman of much controversy with her unusual attire and behavior.
She met Modigliani in Paris and the two had a rough and tough love affair for 2 years.
Dreaming of a sculptor, Modigliani abandoned sculpture and dedicated to painting when he met Hastings, creating a number of paintings and drawings.
Hastings, who returned to London after breaking up with Modigliani, suffered from depression later in her life and died of suicide in 1943.
In her diary at the end of 1914, the year Hastings met Modigliani, she wrote "Someone magnificently painted my picture. I look like the most beautiful Virgin Mary without any accessories in the world."
While Modigliani and Hastings met, she was his muse that gave Modigliani artistic inspirations.
Modigliani expressed this feeling in his paintings, and it seems that Hastings wrote this feeling in her diary.
This work features the most natural and realistic appearance of Hastings among the works that Modigliani painted her.
This work is also almost unique painting of Hastings that depicted her shadow in the background.
The shadow of Hastings in the background, along with her pure and gentle appearance, reminds her of the aura radiating from her, making her look divine as she expressed in her diary as Virgin Mary.
This shadow is also emphasized on the right side of the work to compensate for the void on the right, which is caused by Hastings' body tilting to the left.
Like other works of Modigliani, this work also used lines to geometrically divide the background.
However, Modigliani weakened the intensity of the background lines, making the distinction blurred and somewhat dreamy.
And the horizontal line at the head of Hastings makes it feel like the background is divided into wall and ceiling or wall and sky.
This background also makes her aura feel ascending from her body through her head to the ceiling or sky with clouds.
In addition, her left face line and right shoulder line and right face line and left shoulder line were drawn in a similar form to balance the overall spaces in this work.
Although this work is an oil painting, it gives the impression of an unfinished watercolor by wakening the intensity of the color.
Also, the transparent hand of Hastings painted in the lower part of the work balances the upper part of the painting, which is like a mixture of clouds and her aura.
It also seems that Hastings is trying to convey to viewers through her hand that she is a woman of sincerity with her conscience like Virgin Mary.
Thank you.
Korean Blog
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