Modigliani(1884 – 1920)

Inspired by

MODIGLIANI

Amedeo Modigliani was a Jewish Italian painter born in Livorno, Italy in 1884. He died in Paris in 1920.

His story is a tragic one, with lots of alcohol drugs and an early death at the age of 35.

He lived a childhood in poverty, suffered from both typhus as well as tuberculosis. Not only Amedeo was depressed, also his family was. Fortu-nately his mother recognized his talent for drawing and supported him in his wish do study painting and drawing.

In 1906, at the age of 22, also Modigliani moved to Paris, just like many painters of that time. Even though he was influenced by for example cub-ism, Modigliani managed to maintain his own style.

He was a quick painter and he was able to finish a portrait very fast. The people who posed for him said that Amedeo Modigliani was able to reveal their soul.

Modigliani would go back to Italy twice and he lived in Nice for a while. But he would always go back to Paris. The last time he took his fiancée Jeanne Hébuterne and their extramarital daughter, who was also called Jeanne, with him.

The last period of his life he got tuberculosis again and all the alcohol and drugs caused that his body was too fragile to survive yet another dis-ease. When Amedeo died, Jeanne Hébuterne killed herself the next day, 8 months pregnant of their second child. Jeanne and Amedeo never got married. Their daughter Jeanne was adopted by Modigliani's sister.

Amedeo got most famous for his female nudes and portraits with very long necks.

For this lesson, I got inspired by this portrait of a sitting man, painted in 1918.

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The people who posed for him said that Amedeo Modigliani was able to reveal their soul.

ASSIGNMENT How much time do you have to spend on this e-course this week?

Less than 1 hour:- Read the PDF- Watch the video - Make a 5 minute pencil sketch, inspired by a Modigliani Portrait.

More than 1 hour:- Read the PDF- Watch the video- Study the paintings of Modigliani. Look closely at all the features of their faces. Note how many body parts are out of proportion.- Make a Modigliani inspired portrait. Combine elements of different portraits.- Colour your sketch in a painterly style with a minimal colour palette. Use the paintings as an inspiration source and make clever usage of aaneutral colours.

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STEP BY STEP

1. I start by sketching the man with a pen-cil. In the first part of the sketch I am pretty much copying what I see.

2. I decide that I want the neck to be longer, just like Modigliani did in many of his portraits.

3. No, Modigliani did not use mixed media tech-niques in acrylics. Acrylics didn't exist yet. I am sure that Modigliani would have loved this fast drying paint!

I am adding a few pieces of paper with matte gel medium, just to add some structure.

Inspired by Modigliani

4. I start of by colouring the face in layers of a mixture of the flesh tint, white, yellow and ochre. I keep on layering and layering until I am satisfied.

The paint I use is ARA and it dries super fast, so I have to work pretty quickly.

5. I outline the drawing with a thick black line. Later I will paint over those lines again, covering them with a layer of paint, so that a playful black line will remain.

Note: To color the man I am using a yellow ochre or raw sienna, burt sienna or burnt umber, a minty permanent green, black, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, a flesh tint and titanium white. As usual I pick a certain colour palette in advance and I challenge myself to only use these colours.

I'll still get a vibrant, colourful look and feel, be-cause I have picked some contrasting colours next to my neutrals.

Note: I am using a small flat synthetic brush to color the man. I am using a slightly smaller brush than I usually would, because I want to give this character a very painterly look. I get this painterly look by adding small brush strokes that I do not blend too much. It is a matter of layering.

6. Modigliani often did not paint any irises or pupils in the eyes.

9. For the shirt I use a mixture of green, white and black. I hope that you notice that I work quickly and far from precise. It is like colouring a colour page, but than in tiny playful brush strokes. Do not be neat here! Just work as fast as you can, without feeling too rushed.

10. I colour the background with a mixture of the mint green and white, with traces of yellow.

8. I colour the jacket with a mixture of brown, red and black. I use small brush strokes.

11. An now I am going to "Blokify" my Modigliani portrait! I definitely need to bring in some red poppy flowers, don't you think? :-)a

9. When the transparent gesso is dry, I add more detail and colours with my water soluble crayons.

I love how the crayons give a rich grain and struc-ture on the transparent gesso. I add orange polka dots to the yellow chair.

10. I add a white centre to the red flowers.

8. When all the paint is really dry, I add a super thin layer of transparent gesso.

11. I brush letter the word MOUSTACHE above the man.

RESOURCES Books: Modigliani, Christian Parisot, 1991.

Art: http://www.wikiart.org/en/amedeo-modigliani

Images:1. Men with glass of wine, 1919 (cover)2. portrait of a young girl, 19103. Female nude, 19164. Leon Indenbaum, 1915

MOVIE TIP!

There is a biography about Modigliani with

Andy Garcia playing Modigliani.

Modigliani, 2004, directed by Mick Davis.

http://www.imdb.com/title/

tt0367188/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

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