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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.
The 47th work to introduce for this
week is “Portrait of Juan Gris” in 1915.
This work is a portrait of an
expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 54.9 x 38.1
cm, and currently possessed by Metropolitan Art Museum, New York, USA.
José Victoriano González-Pérez,
better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter who was born on March 23, 1887,
and died on May 11, 1927. He worked most of his life in France and his work is
closely related to Cubism, a genre of art that was innovative at the time.
Juan Gris
Gris was born in Madrid and studied
engineering at the Madrid School of Arts and Sciences. From 1902 to 1904, he contributed
drawings to local periodicals there. From 1904 to 1905, Gris studied painting
with the academic artist José Moreno Carbonero and began using his name as Juan
Gris in 1905.
Entry of Roger de Flor in Constantinople, José Moreno Carbonero (1888)
In 1906, Gris moved to Paris, and
became friends with the poets Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, and artists
Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Jean Metzinger. In Paris, Gris
followed the lead of Metzinger and another friend and colleague Pablo Picasso.
In 1909, his first wife, Lucie
Belin, gave birth to Georges Gonzalez-Gris, who was their only child, and the
three lived at the Bateau-Lavoir in Paris from 1909 to 1911. In 1912, Gris met
Charlotte Augusta Fernande Herpin, also known as Josette, who became Juan Gris’
second companion and unofficial wife.
In 1911, after giving up working of
a satirical cartoonist, Gris began to paint seriously and developed a personal Cubist
style at this time. He exhibited his work for the first time at the 1912 Salon
des Indépendants with a painting entitled “Hommage à Pablo Picasso.”
Hommage à Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris (1912)
At first, Gris painted in the style
of Analytical Cubism, a term he later coined, but after 1913 he began to switch
to Synthetic Cubism. Unlike Picasso and Braque, whose Cubist works were
practically monochromatic, Gris painted in bright and harmonious colors in the
way of his friend Matisse. His work, which favored clarity and order,
influenced the Purist style of Amédée Ozenfant and Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le
Corbusier), and made Gris an important example of the postwar "return to
order" movement.
Nature morte (Still Life), Amédée Ozenfant (1920-21)
In 1915, Modigliani, a friend of
Gris, painted his portrait, and in 1924 Gris designed ballet sets and costumes
for Sergei Diaghilev and his famous Ballets Russes.
Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes
Gris died of kidney failure at the
age of 40 in Boulogne-sur-Seine, Paris on 11 May 1927.
In today's work, the model's dark eyebrows
and pupils make Gris’ face more vivid and clear. This is an expression of the
image of his appearance, but Modigliani, who had a genius talent for expressing
the model's character in his paintings, seems to paint his face in a clear
style with a strong feeling to suggest the Gris’ character who preferred
clarity and order.
In addition, the traces of Cloisonnisme,
drawing the boundary of the face and the neck dark and clearly, make his
appearance even darker. The Gris’ neck also feels like a cylinder on the body,
which can be seen as the influence of Paul Cézanne, who inspired Modigliani.
Thank you.
Woman with Mandolin, after Corot, Juan Gris (1916)
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