The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 35. Fat Child (1915)

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

The 35th work to introduce for this week is “Fat Child (1915)”.

This work is a portrait of an expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 45.5 x 37.5 cm.

It is currently owned by the Palazzo Brera in Milan, Italy.

In this work, the signature “Modigliani” is written in bottom left and the title 

“L’Enfant/gras” is written in top left and the text “LOUISE” is next to the ear. Sometimes, Modigliani wrote the title on his work to identify the model or convey the message.

Another example is Modigliani's friend, Utrillo, who liked to use the word "vin" as a symbol of the old houses he painted. Utrillo was also the son of Suzanne Valadon, who was a painter as well as a model of Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. Picasso and Braque also used certain words in their cubist works as official elements of their works.

Although Modigliani abandoned the sculpture in 1914, it seems to be the regrets about the sculpture that there are many traces of sculptural feeling in his works for the rest of his life.

The almost perfect oval face of the model in this work is reminiscent of the "Portrait of Mademoiselle Pogany" created by Constantin Brâncuși in 1912, who was a teacher of Modigliani as well as influential to him.

Portrait of Mademoiselle Pogany, Constantin Brancusi (1912) 

This is a work that shows almost all the typical styles of Modigliani, such as almond-shaped empty eyes without pupils and elongated neck.

In addition, the ear is only drawn and the head is larger on the right side, and the neck and face are slightly tilted to the right, therefore the model is biased to the right. With the intention of offsetting this model's bias, Modigliani drew her nose and mouth biased to the left, positioning the eye on the left a little higher, and with his signature, he put much more text than usual works to the left to balance the work.

Also, in the background, he used additional curve with straight lines in the background compared to his usual style of dividing the background geometrically using straight lines, with the intention of emphasizing the shape of the unusually rounded oval face.

Therefore, we can get a glimpse of Modigliani's intricateness of drawing the whole composition in advance, when drawing a work.

This work also has holes in the 4 corners, and 2 of them were covered by restoration.

As commented in the portraits of Hastings, the place where Modigliani and Hastings first met was “Chez Rosalie” restaurant, run by Rosalie Tobia, who provided food to the poor Modigliani for free, and Modigliani drew paintings in return.

However, Rosalie, who didn't know art well, did not recognize the value of Modigliani’s paintings. Therefore, many works have been damaged due to her neglected management, such as nailing them on the toilet.

The holes in the corners of this work also might be such nail holes from the time of drawing.

Then, this work also might be one of Modigliani's paintings for Rosalie in return for a free meal.

Thank you.

Korean Blog