Amedeo Modigliani, a tuberculous alcoholic, addicted to women with unshaven, thick, black, messy hair, in a dirty jacket and with nails yellowed from nicotine and oil paints, was the epitome of a Parisian artist who barely makes ends meet. Today, he is best known for portraits of women with elongated faces and figures and erotic paintings worth millions.
Born in 1884 in Livorno, in a Jewish family. His painting talent was recognized even as a child but, as the father opposed his son becoming a painter, he probably would never have developed his gift had it not been for the mother who supported him and the fact that he was very ill.
In 1898, Modigliani contracted typhus. After his recovery, he was allowed to leave school and attend drawing and painting classes at the Livorno Academy of Arts.
A few years later, Modigliani moved to Paris and formed his recognizable style - painting, but also life!
"The last real bohemian"
In the "city of light" Modigliani began to associate with other painters, poor poets, vagrants and vagabonds, and soon he himself adopted such a way of life, beginning to despise the Parisian gentlemen and the "false splendor" of the bourgeoisie.
Sometime around that time, the painter probably had the first traces of tuberculosis, but he covered it up with alcohol, opiates and drugs, so he increasingly attributes bouts of coughing and exhaustion to his vicious life, not disease. He drank absinthe the most, and of the narcotics he adored hashish. In the fog created by these two substances, he knew how to spend several weeks in a row.
In his world of alcoholics, unrecognized and poor artists and street people, he was called the "prince of vagabond". After meeting Modigliano, the German artist Ludwig Meidmer described the painter as "the last real bohemian".
He was also known for the scandalous behavior that shocked the Parisians at the time. He was able to strip naked in the middle of the street just to provoke the reactions of polite passers-by. He was accompanied by numerous love affairs with married women.
"Prince the Loser"
In the period before the First World War, Modiljani mainly made stone sculptures inspired by African art. Sometime around 1914, he stopped sculpting and started painting in an expressionist style - his face and neck are elongated, the lines are finely bent, the pupils of the eyes are often not visible, the lips are small ...
In 1916, he began a large series of extremely erotic acts, by which he would become more unrecognizable. He often gave them away in exchange for food.
Ironically, some art historians believe that it was precisely the vicious life that Amedeo Modigliani led that was responsible for his original style. Adherents of this theory believe that if he had remained sober, if he had not enjoyed absinthe and hashish so much, Modigliani would have been just a mediocre painter whom no one would remember to this day.
In 1917, the painter met the nineteen-year-old artist Jean Ebutern, with whom he began to live and who became one of his main models. He painted it more than 25 times.
On December 3 of that year, Modiljani had a solo exhibition for the first and last time in his life. He exhibited his series of nudes in the Paris gallery "Bert Vale", and the scene was so shocking that the police intervened and ordered the canvases to be removed.
Last year:
Modigliani and Jean took refuge from Paris in Nice for about a year, during which time his most famous and today most expensive works were written. At the end of 1918, Modigliani's partner gave birth to their daughter, calling her by her name - Jean.
Upon his return to Paris, English collectors became interested in Modigliani's works, and for a moment it seemed that everything would be fine.
But the years of vicious life have come to fruition. Ignoring the insidious disease, Modigliani only accelerated the progression of tuberculosis. He finally lost the battle with the disease on January 24, 1920. He was only 35 years old.
Overwhelmed by pain, the day after his funeral, Jean committed suicide by jumping out of a window from her parents' apartment on the fifth floor. She was eight months pregnant carrying their second child.
At first, the family did not comply with her wish to be buried next to her beloved partner. It was not until 10 years later that her remains were allowed to be transferred to Modigliani's tomb in the famous Parisian Pere Lachaise cemetery. On his grave it is written: "He was cut down by death in the moment of glory", and on hers: "Faithful companion in extreme sacrifice".
As for the painter's only daughter - Jean Modigliani, she grew up with her aunt, far from fame and glory, who posthumously began to follow her parents. Later, she collected material and published the biography of her father "Modiljani: man and myth".
This artist have beautiful but strange portraits. That is giving a dose of admiration to his extraordinary skills. Erotic expression is something normal in freedom of an artist and that additional bring viewers to chill and breath taken away. It is sad he has problems with his health.