modigliani

On Friday we drove up to Brisbane to visit Picasso & His Collection at the Gallery of Modern Art. As it turned out Picasso himself wasn’t able to attend due to his being largely indisposed (chuckles)… but nonetheless we enjoyed High Tea without him in the Gallery Cafe before viewing the show.

High Tea!

This was an exhibition of Picasso’s personal collection “on tour” from the Musee National Picasso in Paris. It included not only Picasso’s own works but many important pieces acquired throughout his life from artist friends and colleagues… and included paintings, drawings and prints by artists such as Chardin, Matisse, Renoir, Cézanne, Rousseau, Miró, Modigliani (just one) and Braque as well as a selection of Oceanic and African works.

Gallery Cafe @ GOMA Brisbane

Although exceptionally well put together I initially found it difficult to get excited about much of the art. However… as this was Picasso’s personal collection I tried my best to understand what might have compelled this man to collect these particular works.

The conclusion I came to was that the collection comprised works that had “meaning” for him… works by friends and colleagues who had shared the same time and place in history… and a common experience of life in early 20th century Paris. Once I reconciled this… I found a new appreciation.

I admire Picasso’s work but none of it has ever really moved me. Perhaps this could be perceived as some grave failure on my part… but I do know what I like! So for me… only one painting in the whole collection truly resonated. Interestingly… it was the only Modigliani in the collection.

Poorly reproduced here – this image bears little resemblance to the original

Modigliani’s “Seated Dark Haired Girl” (painted in 1918 two years before his untimely death and acquired by Picasso two years after it) literally sucked me in from across the room and held me spellbound.

So simply executed… so profoundly beautiful… so “achingly” human.

I have long admired Modigliani’s work… the big shapes… the deceptively simple execution… but never before had I so completely “got it”. The emotional content was palpable. Tears welled in my eyes. Odd that they did… for Modigliani wasn’t given to painting eyes! But in this painting there was something about them…

The story goes that when Jeanne Hebuterne (Modigliani’s beautiful companion and muse) asked him why he never painted her eyes… Modigliani enigmatically replied

“I will paint your eyes when I know your soul”

I wonder though if this really explains it. Why would a painter choose not to paint his sitter’s eyes? (especially when his earlier work proved him more than capable of doing so.

To me… there seems to have been a creeping cynicism in the artwork from around this time. And this exhibition showed it was not isolated to Modigliani’s work either.

For Modigliani… a potent combination of illness poverty and substance abuse had created a pervasive atmosphere of despair and competitive rivalry with his peers (in particular Picasso). He was reportedly burned out by this time in his career… and through the haze of substance abuse (perhaps) he grew tired and cynical… too tired to look his subjects in the eye… let alone look deeply into their souls!

I believe this is what makes this particular painting all the more extraordinary. It’s as though the artist dug “especially deep” to produce it. How amazing that a stranger might stand before it all these years later and feel the impact of that struggle!

I cast my eyes around the room searching the walls of perfectly rendered images that said… virtually nothing to me… and never before had I been so acutely aware that it matters not what subject the painter paints… nor how technically correct the rendering might be… nor how zealously or slavishly he or she pursues literal perfection, detail or correctness.

What matters most of all is that the work captures the soul of the subject and the spirit of the artist [within it]. When those two forces meet the earth moves and the heavens open up!

To me… that is what is essential. And in the end it’s the only thing that matters… and the only thing worth striving for.

Only rose petals left… (grin)

I should have liked it if Picasso and Modigliani could have joined us for tea (or perhaps in their case something just a tad stronger)… but nonetheless we ate all the sandwiches and cakes… drank copious quantities of coffee and tea and toasted those raucous heady days in the cafes of Montparnasse and the times that defined them all!

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