The Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 97. Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne in a Large Hat (1918)

 

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani.

The 97th work to introduce for this week is “Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne in a Large Hat” in 1918.

This work is an expressionist style portrait and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 55 x 37.5 cm and possessed by Private Collection.

This portrait portrays Modigliani's last lover, Jeanne Hebuterne, and he has painted many portraits of her since he met Jeanne.

Jeanne Hebuterne

In this painting, Jeanne, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that seems to receive halo behind it, raises one of her hands and places fingers on her chin, giving a pensive expression.

Such a pose of Jeanne is also similar to Modigliani's "Portrait of Lunia Czechowska."

Portrait of Lunia Czechowska, Amedeo
Modigliani (1918)

Her hat is black on top and the underside of the brim is brown, and her skin tone is a similar shade, but slightly lighter and paler.

The painting reveals many of the typical features of Modigliani paintings, such as asymmetric almond-shaped eyes, hollow eyes without pupils, elongated oval face, nose and neck, and her mask-like face also shows influences from African art. 

In this painting, Jeanne is slightly offset from the center and one side of her hat extends beyond the canvas, which Modigliani seems to emphasize the size of her hat large enough to completely cover her face.

In addition, her hands reaching out and touching her face with her fingers and her gentle expression are reminiscent of the soft and serene faces found in the statues of saints in Catholic churches, and these moods are a reflection of the Renaissance art that greatly influenced Modigliani.

The tones of her soft face and bust matches with the featureless background of a similar tone, and the black color of her dress and her hat matches with the black sofa she is sitting.

Besides this painting, there are paintings of Jeanne wearing a hat by Modigliani as shown below.

Jeanne Hebuterne with Hat and Necklace,
Amedeo Modigliani (1917)

Jeanne Hebuterne, Amedeo Modigliani
(1918)

Jeanne Hebuterne in a Hat, Amedeo
Modigliani (1919)

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The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 21. Caryatid (c.1912)

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

The 21st work to introduce for this week is “Caryatid (c.1912)”.

This work is a nude painting of an expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 72.9 x 50.1 cm.

Currently, the “Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen” in Düsseldorf, Germany possesses this work.

“Caryatid” is a sculpture of a female figure and serves as an architectural support replacing a column supporting the entablature, which is the horizontal part of the upper part of the column, on her hand.

The Greek word "karyatides" means “maidens of Karyai”, an ancient village of Peloponnese.

In Karyai, there was a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis.

"As Karyatis, she was delighted in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai. Those Karyatides ecstatically danced carrying on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants”.

Modigliani drew more than 70 drawings for Caryatid.

The style of these works shows that Modigliani was fascinated by the wide variety of arts considered to be ‘primitive’, including “African” art.

Though not realized, Modigliani is said to have envisioned a 'temple of humanity' surrounded by hundreds of Caryatid.

A number of various drawings of Modigliani as a sculptor at the time were not just preliminary sketches of particular sculptures, but also a means of generating ideas for his later sculptures.

As in many sketches, the face of this work evokes ancient Egyptian or Mycenaean sculpture, and the body is almost geometrically divided.

The model's hair style in this work, is very similar to the style used in classical Greek sculptures, showing more Mediterranean than African.

The arms look elongated and strong, but the body is long and thin, and the waist is bent at an angle that is difficult to support the weight of the stone.

The woman's legs also look very strong, like her arms, but her bent waist seems to be in danger of breaking soon due to the weight of the stones she supports, and therefore the woman looks unstable.

In addition, this work is a nude painting of a women but depicts a vision of power and tranquility despite the unstable waist rather than the sensuality of the woman.

The work is known to be inspired by the Russian female poet “Anna Akhmatova”, who was once a lover of Modigliani.

Later, Akhmatova said about Modigliani as follow.

"I was lucky because I met Modigliani before everyone else. Everyone who remembers Modigliani met him in 1914 and 1915, but I met him in 1910."

She often modelled for Modigliani and said as follow.

"What Modigliani was interested in was not a model's appearance, but a pose. He drew several drawings, representing me as a dancer or an Egyptian princess."

Her slender, elegant body, glamorous face with an aquiline nose and short hair are well represented in many drawings and sculptures by Modigliani.

After breaking up with Modigliani, she lived a painful and turbulent life due to the Soviet’s political persecution, and as a result, she was able to preserve only one drawing of Modigliani.

In this work, you can see a dark-colored man's head in the back of a kneeling woman, and some critics claim that this man is “Maldoror”, the fictional main character of Modigliani's favorite literary work.

Maldoror is the main character of the “Les Chants de Maldoror”, a prose poem written by the Uruguayan-born French writer "Comte de Lautréamont" between 1868 and 1869.

In this work, Maldoror emerged as an evil figure who gave up the conventional morality. 

It was not well known at the time of its first publication, but was rediscovered by surrealist artists in the early 20th century.

Another interesting fact is that by turning this work 180 degrees, you can discover a new painting, such as an Egyptian sculpture, and perhaps Modigliani seems to continue testing while thinking about how to draw Caryatid.

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