How are you?
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.
The 78th work to introduce for this
week is “Portrait of a Woman in a Black Tie” in 1917.
This work is an expressionist style
portrait and an oil painting on a canvas with the size of 65.4 x 50.5 cm, and
held in private collection.
Painted in 1917, this work gives the impression that Modigliani went straight to the point intending to convey to viewers, by completely eliminating extraneous elements. However, it is surprising that the characteristics and personality of the model are conveyed to the viewers as it is, despite the almost complete elimination of such elements.
This style of Modigliani can be seen as a good representation of his
character for pursuing the purity of art, and his friend Max Jacob said,
"To Modigliani, everything in art had to lead to purity. Everything in
this painting is just the expression of his absolute demand for crystalline
purity.”
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| Max Jacob, Amedeo Modigliani |
It is said that the prototype of
this portrait was his lover, a journalist Beatrice Hastings. Hastings was a
woman Modigliani met for about two years before meeting Jeanne Hébuterne, and
his muse who gave Modigliani a lot of artistic inspiration. Some documents said
that she was a legendary woman who tamed Modigliani, an arrogant artist, as a
docile person.
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| Portrait of Beatrice Hastings, Amedeo Modigliani |
The woman in this work is depicted
in almost every unique style of Modigliani: a mask-like face, almond-shaped
eyes without pupils, triangular nose, small mouth, arched eyebrows, slanted
head and elongated face.
However, one of his features, an
elongated neck, does not appear in this work, and the woman's neck, covered
with the collar of her white shirt, is barely visible. Although the woman in
this work is depicted in almost every unique style of Modigliani, unlike the
women in his other works, she looks very mysterious and strange, and at the
same time exudes a unique and elegant charm that only women have.
She also should be a happy woman when referring to her attire, but her actual appearance indicates that she is not happy but looks gloomy, and the background color further enhances her gloomy look.
It can be said that receiving this feeling from the woman without
pupils is a manifestation of Modigliani's genius talent for expressing his
models’ characteristics and personality in his paintings.
Thank you.
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