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Author of over 40 books published on Amazon, including The Crimson Horror series and The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories series.
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Showing posts with label Jeanne Hébuterne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeanne Hébuterne. Show all posts
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani.
The 99th work to introduce for this
week is “Jeanne Hebuterne Seated in Bed” in 1919.
This work is an expressionist style
portrait and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 54 x 38 cm and possessed
by The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Israel.
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
In the last winter of his life,
Modigliani painted two paintings of Jeanne sitting in the identical format,
including this one. The other painting is of Jeanne's bust-length sitting with
a bedhead in the background, while this one is of Jeanne's full-length sitting
on the bed with her hands crossed on her knees.
Jeanne Hebuterne (1919)
Also, from her appearance in this
painting, we can see that she is currently pregnant with her second child. In
this painting, Jeanne's appearance seems to have hopes that the future will be
a better and happier life with her soon-to-be-born second child, young first
daughter, and Modigliani, although the present is very hard and difficult.
The
short-sleeved dress and the same wide striped belt Jeanne is wearing in this
painting seem to have been designed by her, and the dress and belt can also be
seen in other Modigliani’s paintings of Jeanne.
Seated Jeanne Hebuterne (1918)
Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne (1919)
The soft sunlit bed and bedside
table add the intimacy to the painting, but Jeanne's unawareness of the tragic
destiny of herself and her baby in the near future makes this intimacy even
sadder.
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani.
The 98th work to introduce for this
week is “Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne” in 1918.
This work is an expressionist style
portrait and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 46 x 29 cm and possessed
by Private Collection.
In 1917, Modigliani met Jeanne
Hébuterne, and the two were taking model drawing courses at the Académie
Colarossi. At the time, Jeanne was 19 and
Modigliani was 33.
Academie Colarossi life drawing class (1908)
Although she was a talented art
student, she gave up everything to devote herself to Modigliani, and she stayed
with him until she ended her life by suicide in 1920. The day after
Modigliani's death, she committed suicide by jumping out of a window with her
second child, who was eight months pregnant.
Most of the women Modigliani met
before meeting Jeanne were strong, active and provocative, whereas Jeanne was
devoted and passive.
Jeanne Hebuterne
This painting is a natural-looking
portrait of Jeanne using muted colors. A distinctive feature of this painting
is that it is drawn only with curves without using any straight lines
throughout the painting. The soft curves in the background emphasize the
softness of Jeanne's features, hair and clothes.
Modigliani painted Jeanne's pupils
in brown, which makes her look much more expressive and lively compared to his
other portraits having empty eyes without pupils. Also, despite the elongated
drawing of her neck, face and nose, her hair, eyes, and mouth are drawn
realistically, and these expressions seem to somewhat alleviate the elongation
of her neck, face and nose. In this painting, Jeanne's expression feels very
soft and she looks at the viewer with a figure full of naturalness and
elegance, and the viewer is captured by her gaze.
Below are other portraits of Jeanne
by Modigliani that are similar in size and feel to this portrait.
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani.
The 96th work to introduce for this
week is “Jeanne Hébuterne with a Necklace” in 1917.
This work is an expressionist style
portrait and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 55.8 x 38.7 cm and possessed
by Private Collection.
This portrait is one of the very
first paintings that Modigliani painted Jeanne Hébuterne. Jeanne was a French
painter and artist model, born on April 6, 1898 and died on January 25, 1920,
best known as Modigliani's principal model and common-law wife.
Jeanne Hébuterne
She was born in
Meaux, a city in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region, the
second child of Achille Casimir Hébuterne and Eudoxie Anaïs Tellier Hébuterne.
She was introduced to the artistic community in Montparnasse by her brother and
the painter André Hébuterne, where she met several artists who were starving at
the time and became a model for Tsuguharu Foujita.
Tsuguharu Foujita in his studio
Talented for drawing, she studied
at the Académie Colarossi to pursue a career in the art, where in the spring of
1917 she was introduced to Modigliani by the sculptress Chana Orloff, who,
along with many other artists, came to utilize the Academy’s living models, and
she soon fell in love with Modigliani. Her parents strongly opposed her meeting
with Modigliani, but she soon left her home and began living with Modigliani.
Chana Orloff
Academie Colarossi life drawing class (1908)
Gentle, shy, quiet and delicate,
Jeanne became a principal subject of Modigliani's paintings. In the spring of 1918, the couple
moved to the warmer climate of Nice, and on November 29 of that year, their
daughter, Jeanne Modigliani, was born.
Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne, Amedeo Modigliani (1918)
The following spring, they returned
to Paris and Jeanne became pregnant again. At the time, Modigliani was
suffering from tuberculous meningitis and his health deteriorated further with
complications from substance abuse.
Self portrait, Jeanne Hébuterne (1916)
After Modigliani's death on January
24, 1920, her family took her to their home, but she threw herself out of the
window on the fifth floor of the apartment the day after Modigliani's death,
killing herself and her unborn child. Her family, who blamed her death on
Modigliani, buried her in the Cimetière de Bagneux.
Entrance of the Cimetière parisien de Bagneux
Nearly ten years later, at
the request of Modigliani's elder brother Emanuele, her remains were
transferred beside Modigliani in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Her epitaph reads:
"Devoted companion to the extreme sacrifice."
Grave of Modigliani and Hébuterne in Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Their orphaned daughter, Jeanne
Modigliani, was adopted by Modigliani's elder sister in Florence, Italy.
Growing up knowing almost nothing about her parents, she began researching her
parents' lives as an adult. In 1958, she wrote a biography of her father,
entitled “Modigliani: Man and Myth.”
Jeanne Modigliani
Modigliani: Man and Myth
The friends of Jeanne Hébuterne
used to describe her as having two long tresses flowing down her back, but in
this painting, she poses with her hair up. The dress she wears with its
fastening was probably of her own design and making, and her necklace of coarse
grains adds a sense of stability to her appearance.
Jeanne Hébuterne
This painting, painted somewhat
heavy with impasto technique, is very different from the following Modigliani’s
paintings of her, showing her sophisticated appearances and more liberal use of
paint. However, this painting touches us with an intense feeling, as if
foretelling their passionate love that would end tragically.
Woman's Head in Profile, Amedeo Modigliani (1906-7)
How are you?
My fourth article was published in “Quid
Magazine”, an Italian online art magazine I am working as a visiting columnist
and writer.
The topic of this article, as
before, is about Amedeo Modigliani, and the title of the article is “Lost Works
of Amedeo Modigliani in Early Paris Period. Why?"
After moving to Paris, France in
1906, Modigliani was very active in his career but his remaining paintings,
especially during the years of 1906-1908, are very few.
In this article, I summarized the
reasons, and you can review the article from the link below.
