Recently, My spouse and i had to find a house warming gift for friends but we were utterly out of ideas. For a similar celebration they had presented me with a quaich, a Scottish symbol of everlasting friendship, and so i felt I needed to get something more than just a card.
Our friends really are an out of the ordinary couple you simply can’t pigeonhole. They are clever, humorous and true individuals and because they were moving in to a brand new home, I felt an ornamental item could be perfect, but I was at a loss as to what to pick? My own, personal style runs to pieces from the ancient world, like {Roman art} and Greek sculpture. I put in a lot of time trying to find something remarkable, a present that had a story, but Aphrodite didn’t seem appropriate, an Alexander bust was something I knew they already had and Hippocrates would have been ideal for a physician, but not for an IT expert and a lawyer. What I wanted was a little something the same and also, like my friends, completely different.
My eventual choice was a Modigliani sculpture, an elongated female head sculpture quite different from the classical sculpture I’d thought about and yet precisely the same. Time-honored but primitive at the same time Modigliani art work is plainly influenced by African Masks and Polynesian sculpture, clean and curved whilst prolonged and angular, it is the contradiction that helps make the sculpture so unforgettable.
Modigliani’s story is a heartbreaking one. Born in 1884, his ability for painting was obvious from an early age, nonetheless his life was destroyed by tuberculosis. His mother made sure he had the best quality teaching, and he was very well respected by his art teacher, though he formulated his own individual style which has much more in common with the angular Art Deco movement yet to come compared to curvaceous Art Nouveau still in fashion. Primarily, it is even now a style of it’s own, quite unique.
Like many now famous artists Modigliani was remarkably undiscovered in his own life. He produced a tremendous quantity of work, often as much as one hundred paintings per day, but most of the time he offered these to friends or girlfriends who did not keep them. It appears as though he understood his life would be brief, and maybe as a result of that, he took to drugs and alcohol, to the stage where many claimed his unique style was due entirely to hashish, however it was obviously not true. He was a devotee of Nietzsche and Baudelaire and came to the conclusion real creativity required dysfunction and defiance. At some point in his career he demolished most of his earlier art declaring them far inferior.
As time passed his wellness grew even worse. He was rejected for military service in the First World War and continued to live in Paris, not knowing when the upcoming payment of his allowance would arrive. He was attractive and charming and women enjoyed him, but although he was able to sell a few art works during his lifetime, he never produced any money from these.
Modigliani died a pauper, from meningitis, his linens discolored with oil from a sardine can, the only thing he had still left to eat. As always, there had been a female involved. Much more youthful than Modigliani and on the day he perished almost 9 months pregnant with their 2nd child. Right after his passing the woman’s family members took her home and the lady walked back out of a window, killing herself and the unborn baby.
The tales concerning Modigliani’s life are brimming with contradiction. Many have attempted to say that the girl, Jeanne Hebuterne was simply another passing fad for the artist, however their daughter’s investigation revealed the girl was an artist in her own right. Her figurines had been shown for the first time in an exhibition in 2000.
As for the Modigliani art we settled on, the statue is elongated and abstract depiction of a woman’s head that is both soft yet striking. Unfortunately we cannot know who she’s meant to be; there’s no tale unless we make one. No particular style of decor is required. The Modigliani bust would be welcome anyplace.
For me, a part of the appeal of the piece as a gift is actually the similarity between the artisan and my friends. Each witty, brilliant and appealing, a rebel and an individual. There the commonalities between them end.