Modi’s Girl
Watercolour 22″ x 30″
Copyright 2008 Jean Burman
I am writing this in the early hours of the morning from the Q1 tower on the Gold Coast. The sun gets up so early here as summer approaches… situated as it is near the eastern seabord’s most easterly point. So it’s impossible to sleep past 5.30am. By summer the sun will rise an hour earlier even than that. I would definitely need black out blinds if I should ever live here!
Last week was a busy one for me. The builders moved in to do some repairs on the house before the painters come sometime next week. Zoned out on Mozart and in and out between the hammering and crashing however… I was able to get some painting done. Sadly no writing though… but hey… who can have it all? LOL
Modi’s Girl was born out of a wish (on my part) to give Jeanne Hebuterne… Modigliani’s sweet wife and muse… the eyes Modigliani had omitted in his famous portrait “Jeanne Hebuterne avec un grand chapeau”.
A little arrogant perhaps… but heartfelt nonetheless. And I’m pleased I did it. I think Jeanne wouldn’t mind so much… and I feel now as though I know her (even if only just a little).
Jeanne was an artist in her own right who lived and painted in the shadow of Modigliani’s greatness. How great she herself may have ultimately become will never be known for Jeanne threw herself from an upstairs window… taking her life and the life of their unborn child… one day after Modigliani’s untimely death in 1920 from tuberculosis and substance abuse.
She died for love.
That kind of thing doesn’t happen all that often any more. Passion it would seem… is passe. Replacing it… a kind of generalised emotional malaise in the modern way of life.
I wanted to recapture some of the magic of that past… albeit in my own way… adding my own contemporary spin! Whether I was successful or not I shall leave to the critics whom I feel sure will be swift to have me answer for it! (grin)
Either way… it was fun… and I’m glad I did it. 
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