METAPHYSICAL PAINTING

style of painting that flourished mainly between 1911 and 1920 in the works of the Italian artists Giorgio De Chirico, Carlo Carrà, and Giorgio Morandi. These painters' representational but bizarre and incongruous imagery produces strange, disquieting effects on the viewer. Juxtaposing disparate objects set into deep perspectives, these works strongly influenced the Surrealists in the 1920s.

Metaphysical painting originated with De Chirico. In Munich, where he spent his youthful formative years, De Chirico was attracted to 19th-century German Romantic painting and to the works of the philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. The latter's search for hidden meanings beyond surface appearances and his descriptions of empty squares surrounded by arcaded buildings in the Italian city of Turin made a particularly deep impression on De Chirico; his 1915 painting “Turin Melancholy” (Carlo Frua de Angeli Collection, Milan), for example, illustrates just such a square, with unnaturally sharp contrasts of light and shadow that lend an aura of poignant but vaguely threatening mystery to the scene. Thearcades in this painting, as well as the deep perspectival space and dark-toned sky, are pictorial devices found in many of De Chirico's strange, evocative works. The enigmatic titles of his paintings contribute to their dreamlike effect: “The Nostalgia of the Infinite” (Museum of Modern Art, New York City), “The Philosopher's Conquest” (Art Institute of Chicago), and “The Soothsayer's Recompense” (Philadelphia Museum of Art).

Many of De Chirico's paintings depict mannequins, as do the works done around 1917–21 by the former Futurist Carlo Carrà, who came under his influence. The two artists met in 1917, in Ferrara where, together with De Chirico's younger brother—a poet, musician, and painter known as Alberto Savinio—they formulated the rather obscure principles of the scuola metafisica (Metaphysical school). De Chirico, however, had already arrived at his Metaphysical style several years before the movement came into existence and, by 1911, had shown paintings of this nature in Paris. Other adherents to Metaphysical painting were Filippo de Pisis and Mario Sironi. The Metaphysical school proved short-lived, however, and came to an end around 1920 because of dissension between De Chirico and Carrà over who had founded the group. De Chirico'swork done after 1919 lost much of its mysterious power and eventually sank into a degraded and eccentric classicism.

DADA

nihilistic movement in the arts that flourished primarily in Zürich, Switzerland; New York City; Berlin, Cologne, and Hannover, Germany; and Paris in the early 20th century.

Several explanations have been given by various members of the movement as to how it received its name. According to the most widely accepted account, the name was adopted at Hugo Ball's Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, during one of the meetings held in 1916 by a group of young artists and war resisters that included Jean Arp,Richard Hülsenbeck, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, and Emmy Hennings. When a paper knife inserted into a French-German dictionary pointed to the French word dada (“hobby-horse”), it was seized upon by the group as appropriate for their anti-aesthetic creations and protest activities, which were engendered by disgust for bourgeois values and despair over World War I. Dada did not constitute an actual artistic style, but its proponents favoured groupcollaboration, spontaneity, and chance. In the desire to reject traditional modes of artistic creation, many Dadaists worked in collage, photomontage, and found-object construction, rather than in painting and sculpture.

The movement in the United States was centred at Alfred Stieglitz's New York gallery “291,” and at the studio of Walter Arensberg and his wife, both wealthy patrons of the arts. At these locations, Dada-like activities, arising independently but paralleling those in Zürich, were engaged in by such artists as Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Morton Schamberg, and Francis Picabia. The Zürich group was concerned with issues surrounding the war, but New York Dadaists largely focused on mocking the art establishment. For instance, Duchamp's ready-mades—the most famous being Fountain (1917), a porcelain urinal—incited heated debate about the very definition of art. The New York group also collaborated on such publications as The Blind Man, Rongwrong, and New York Dada. Traveling between the United States and Europe, Picabia became a link between the Dada groups in New York, Zürich, and Paris; his Dada periodical, 391 , was published in New York, Zürich, Paris, and Barcelona, Spain, from 1917 through 1924.

In 1917 Hülsenbeck, one of the founders of the Zürich group, transmitted the Dada movement toBerlin, where it took on a more political character. Among the German artists involved were Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, George Grosz, Johannes Baader, Hülsenbeck, Otto Schmalhausen, and Wieland Herzfelde and his brother John Heartfield (formerly Helmut Herzfelde, but Anglicized as a protest against German patriotism). One of the chief means of expression used by these artists wasthe photomontage, which consists of fragments of pasted photographs combined with printed messages; the technique was most effectively employed by Heartfield, particularly in his later, anti-Nazi works (e.g., Kaiser Adolph, 1939). Like the groups in New York and Zürich, the Berlin artists staged public meetings, shocking and enraging the audience with their antics. They, too, issued Dada publications: Club Dada, Der Dada, Jedermann sein eigner Fussball (“Everyman His Own Football”), and Dada Almanach. The First International Dada Fair was held in Berlin in June 1920.

Dada activities were also carried on in other German cities. In Cologne in 1919 and 1920, the chiefparticipants were Max Ernst and Johannes Baargeld. Also affiliated with Dada was Kurt Schwitters of Hannover, who gave the nonsense name Merz to his collages, constructions, and literary productions. Although Schwitters used Dadaistic material—bits of rubbish—to create his works, he achieved a refined formalism that was uncharacteristic of Dada anti-art.

In Paris, Dada took on a literary emphasis under one of its founders, the poet Tristan Tzara. Most notable among the numerous Dada pamphlets and reviews was Littérature (published 1919–24), which contained writings by André Breton, Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault, Paul Éluard, and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes. After 1922, however, Dada began to lose its force.

Dada had far-reaching effects on the art of the 20th century. Its nihilistic, antirationalistic critiques of society and its unrestrained attacks on all formal artistic conventions found no immediate inheritors, but its preoccupation with the bizarre, the irrational, and the fantastic bore fruit in the Surrealist movement. Dada artists' reliance on accident and chance were later employed by the Surrealists and Abstract Expressionists. Conceptual art is also rooted in Dada, forit was Duchamp who first asserted that the mental activity (“intellectual expression”) of the artist was of greater significance than the object created. Critics have even cited Dadaist influences on the punk rock movement of the 1970s.

SURREALISM

movement in visual art and literature, flourishing in Europe between World Wars I and II. Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which before World War I produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason; but Surrealism's emphasis was not on negation but on positive expression. The movement represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the “rationalism” that had guided Europeanculture and politics in the past and that had culminated in the horrors of World War I. According to the major spokesman of the movement, the poet and critic André Breton, who published “The Surrealist Manifesto” in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surreality.” Drawing heavily on theories adapted from Sigmund Freud, Breton saw the unconscious as the wellspring of the imagination. He defined genius in terms of accessibility to this normally untapped realm, which, hebelieved, could be attained by poets and painters alike.

In the poetry of Breton, Paul Éluard, Pierre Reverdy, and others, Surrealism manifested itself in a juxtaposition of words that was startling because it was determined not by logical but by psychological—that is, unconscious—thought processes. Its major achievements, however, were in the field of painting. Surrealist painting was influenced not only by Dadaism but also by the fantastic and grotesque images of such earlier painters as Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya and of closer contemporaries such as Odilon Redon, Giorgio de Chirico, and Marc Chagall. The practice of Surrealist art strongly emphasized methodological research and experimentation, stressing the work of art as a means for prompting personal psychic investigation and revelation. Breton, however, demanded firm doctrinal allegiance. Thus, although the Surrealists held a group show in Paris in 1925, the history of the movement is full of expulsions, defections, and personal attacks.

The major Surrealist painters were Jean Arp, Max Ernst, André Masson, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí, Pierre Roy, Paul Delvaux, and Joan Miró. The work of these artists is too diverse to be summarized categorically as the Surrealist approach in the visual arts. Each artist sought his own means of self-exploration. Some single-mindedly pursued a spontaneous revelationof the unconscious, freed from the controls of the conscious mind; others, notably Miró, used Surrealism as a liberating starting point for an exploration of personal fantasies, conscious or unconscious, often through formal means of great beauty. A range of possibilities falling between the two extremes can be distinguished. At one pole, exemplified at its purest by the works of Arp, the viewer is confronted with images, usually biomorphic, that are suggestive but indefinite. As the viewer's mind works with the provocative image, unconscious associations are liberated, and the creative imagination asserts itself in a totally open-ended investigative process. To a greater or lesser extent, Ernst, Masson, and Miró also followed this approach, variously called organic, emblematic, or absolute Surrealism. At the other pole the viewer is confronted by a world that is completely defined and minutely depicted but that makes no rational sense: fully recognizable, realistically painted images are removed from their normal contexts and reassembled within an ambiguous, paradoxical, or shocking framework. The work aims to provoke a sympathetic response in the viewer, forcing him to acknowledge the inherent “sense” of the irrational and logically inexplicable. The most direct form of this approach was taken by Magritte in simple but powerful paintings such as that portraying a normal table setting that includes a plate holding a slice of ham, from the centre of which stares a human eye. Dalí, Roy, and Delvaux rendered similar but more complex alien worlds that resemble compelling dreamlike scenes.

A number of specific techniques were devised by the Surrealists to evoke psychic responses. Among these were frottage (rubbing with graphite over wood or other grained substances) and grattage (scraping the canvas)—both developed by Ernst to produce partial images, which were to be completed in the mind of the viewer; automatic drawing, a spontaneous, uncensored recording of chaotic images that “erupt” into the consciousness of the artist; and found objects.

With its emphasis on content and free form, Surrealism provided a major alternative to the contemporary, highly formalistic Cubist movement and was largely responsible for perpetuating in modern painting the traditional emphasis on content.

SALVADOR DALI

born May 11, 1904, Figueras, Spain

died Jan. 23, 1989, Figueras

in full Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí Y Domenech Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker, influential for his explorations of subconscious imagery.

As an art student in Madrid and Barcelona, Dalí assimilated a vast number of artistic styles and displayed unusual technical facility as apainter. It was not until the late 1920s, however, that two events brought about the development of his mature artistic style: his discovery of Sigmund Freud's writings on the erotic significance of subconscious imagery, and his affiliation with the Paris Surrealists, a group of artists and writers who sought to establish the “greater reality” of man's subconscious over his reason. To bring up images from his subconscious mind, Dalí began to induce hallucinatory states in himself by a process he described as “paranoiac critical.”

Once Dalí hit on this method, his painting style matured with extraordinary rapidity, and from 1929 to 1937 he produced the paintings which made him the world's best-known Surrealist artist.He depicted a dream world in which commonplace objects are juxtaposed, deformed, or otherwise metamorphosed in a bizarre and irrational fashion. Dalí portrayed these objects in meticulous, almost painfully realistic detail and usually placed them within bleak, sunlit landscapes that were reminiscent of his Catalonian homeland. Perhaps the most famous of these enigmatic images is “The Persistence of Memory” (1931), in which limp, melting watches rest in an eerily calm landscape. With the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, Dalí also made two Surrealistic films—Un Chien andalou (1928; An Andalusian Dog ) and L'Âge d'or (1930; The Golden Age)—that are similarly filled with grotesque but highly suggestive images.

In the late 1930s Dalí switched to painting in a more academic style under the influence of the Renaissance painter Raphael, and as a consequence he was expelled from the Surrealist movement. Thereafter he spent much of his time designing theatre sets, interiors of fashionable shops, and jewelry, as well as exhibiting his genius for flamboyant self-promotional stunts in the United States, where he lived from 1940 to 1955. In the period from 1950 to 1970 Dalí painted many works with religious themes, though he continued to explore erotic subjects, to represent childhood memories, and to use themes centring on his wife, Gala. Notwithstanding their technical accomplishments, these later paintings are not as highly regarded as the artist's earlier works. The most interesting and revealing of Dalí's books is The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (1942–44).

SCHOOL OF PARIS

From 1900 until about 1940, Paris was a center of international art, of artistic activity that provided unparalleled conditions for the exchange of creative ideas. Paris was a real mecca for artists who flocked there to participate in the most advanced aesthetic currents of their time. Paris was attracting artists from all over the world – a time when the French capital was regarded by one and all as the greatest laboratory of modern art.

School of Paris described a group of artists, most of them of foreign extraction, who had chosen to live and work in Paris. A wave of artists of all nationalities gravitated to the French capital and fostered an inspiring climate of imaginative cross-fertilization. Because of the enormous influx of non-French artists living and working in Paris, a loosely defined affiliation developed referred to as the School of Paris. The international activity associated with this group in Paris was initially concentrated in Montmartre, but subsequently moved to Montparnasse in the early 1910s. French La Ruche (English The Beehive) artists' settlement on the outskirts of the Montparnasse section of Paris in the early 20th century became the centre of avant-garde activity. The Beehive housed the ramshackle living quarters and studios of many painters and sculptors,among them Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, Chaim Soutine, Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens, Alexander Archipenko, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, and André Lhote. In addition, this bohemian colony attracted the poets Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and Pierre Reverdy. No single style dominated the settlement; rather, experimentation of all kinds was encouraged.

Modigliani, Soutine, Chagall, Pascin, Fujita and Kisling, are just a handful of the School’s most illustrious representatives. Modigliani’s oval faces and almond eyes, Fujita’s stunning detail and mix of the West and East, and Soutine’s haste and frenzy were all aspects that suggested that the «School of Paris» referred more to a community of artists than to any precise style or movement The school of Paris is not one style; the term describes many styles and movements. The practitioners and adherents of fauvism, cubism, and orphism all belonged to the school of Paris, as well as many artists whose styles fit into no one category. Focusing on conventional subjects such as portraiture, figure studies, landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes, artists of the School of Paris employed a diversity of styles and techniques including the bold, dynamic colors of Fauvism, the revolutionary methods of Cubism, the animated qualities of Expressionism, and the private worlds of Symbolism After the war, when New York City challenged Paris's preeminence in the art world, the school of Paris continued to produce major figures and styles in art: Jean Dubuffet and the Art Brut school are recent examples. The name Ecole de Paris (School of Paris) was still in use after World War 2. Its use was then extended to encompass all non-figurative artists. The name finally ended up referring to so many different artists that it lost all specific meaning. In the early 1920s it encompasses more than one style and movement, including fauvism, cubism, and orphism.

When critics referred to the School of Paris, their intent was above all to combat the modern hegemony of the New York School. In the end the name veiled the diversity of the artists, and the later School of Paris never earned the success and recognition of its earlier years

A leading figure of the School of Paris, the Spaniard Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) moved to France in 1904. Picasso's variety of creative styles are representative of the kind of cross-fertilization that transcends the works of the School of Paris artists. His groundbreaking collaboration with the Frenchman Georges Braque (1882–1963), which began in 1907, fostered the development of Cubism. Subsequently associated with the Surrealist artists working in Paris in the early 1920s (although never an official member of the movement), Picasso's use of Surrealist imagery is evident in Nude Standing by the Sea (1996.403.4). His morphed and organic forms are comparable to Joan Miró (1893–1983), another Spaniard living in Paris and a pioneer of the Surrealist movement. The influential Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) also resided in Paris (1911–15 and again in the 1920s) and is considered a precursor to the magical realism among the Surrealists, as exemplified in his ominous, dreamlike composition Ariadne (1996.403.10) of 1913.

Other artists within the School of Paris who exchanged styles and ideas about painting and sculpture include the Italian Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920), who moved to Paris in 1906. Initially working alongside the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957), who had been in Paris since 1904, Modigliani made, from about 1909 to 1915, a series of sculptures, such as Woman's Head (1997.149.10), with elongated features, oval heads, and thinly incised eyes that show the definitive influence of Brancusi as well as of African sculpture. In Reclining Nude (1997.149.9) from 1917, Modigliani used these stylistic elements, for example the almond-shaped eyes, in his distorted depiction of a nude figure. Another artist whose work exemplifies the exchange of ideas and styles among artists living and working in Paris is the expatriate and friend of Modigliani, the Lithuanian artist Chaim Soutine (1893–1943). Soutine arrived in Paris in 1913 and created pictures imbued with torment and personal expression. In his portrait Madeleine Castaing (67.187.107) from 1929, he alters the figure's facial features just enough to create a psychological intensity and agitation comparable to works by Austrian Expressionists Oscar Kokoschka (1886–1980) and Egon Schiele (1890–1918).

A prominent figure in the School of Paris, the Russian artist Marc Chagall (1887–1985) initially lived in Paris from 1910 to 1914. Moving into a studio in Montparnasse adjacent to Modigliani and near the Frenchman Fernand Léger (1881–1955) and Soutine, Chagall quickly absorbed the stylistic influences of the avant-garde working in Paris. Chagall's The Betrothed (2002.456.8) of 1911 elicits charm and luminescence characteristic of his work at this time. In The Marketplace, Vitebsk (1984.433.6), painted in 1917 after his return to Russia, Chagall's use of unrealistic perspective, sharply defined contours, and figures in various scale show the influence of the French artist Robert Delaunay (1885–1941). Chagall became a leading artist of the School of Paris during the 1920s and '30s after his exile from the Soviet Union in 1923.

The unprecedented migration to Paris of foreign artists who worked in tandem with French luminaries such as Henri Matisse (1869–1954), André Derain (1880–1954), Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), and Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) came to an end with the outbreak of World War II (1939–45). Many artists fled to New York or returned to their homeland and the frenzied activity experienced by members of the School of Paris concluded.

Main Representatives:

Amedeo Modigliani

Marc Chagall

Moise Kisling

Tsuguharu Fujita

Chaim Soutine

Jules Pascin

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI

born July 12, 1884, Livorno, Italy

died Jan. 24, 1920, Paris

Italian painter and sculptor whose portraits and nudes, characterized by asymmetry of composition, elongation of the figure, and a simple but monumental use of line, are among the most important of the 20th century. They have also earned popularity for the entirely personal atmosphere with which they are invested: a kind of mute sympathy between the artist and sitter that implicates the spectator.

Modigliani was born into a Jewish family of small merchants. After suffering from pleurisy and typhus in 1895 and 1898, he was forced to give up a conventional education, and it was then that he began to study painting. After a brief stay in Florence in 1902, he continued his artistic studies in Venice, remaining there until the winter of 1906, when he left for Paris. His early admiration for Italian Renaissance painting—especially that of Siena—was to last throughout his life.

In Paris Modigliani was overwhelmed by the painting of Paul Cézanne, which exerted a decisive influence on the earliest phase of his work. His initial important contacts were with the poets André Salmon and Max Jacob, with Pablo Picasso, and with—in 1907—Paul Alexandre, a friend of the avant-garde artists and the first to become interested in Modigliani and to buy his works. In 1908 he exhibited five or six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. He also met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, by whose work he was impressed and on whose advice he made a serious study of African sculpture. To prepare himself for sculpture, he intensified his graphic experiments. He detested what he considered the false Impressionism of Auguste Rodin, with its pictorial modeling and susceptibility to the play of light. In his drawings he tried to give to his contours the function of limiting or enclosing the volume. In 1912 he exhibited eight stone heads at the Salon d'Automne whose elongated and simplified forms reflect the influence of African sculpture.

Modigliani soon returned entirely to painting, but his experience as a sculptor had fundamental consequences for his style. The characteristics of Modigliani's sculptured heads—long necks and noses, simplified features and long oval faces—soon invaded his painting. By reducing and almost eliminating chiaroscuro—that is, the use of gradations of light and shadow to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality—he achieved, by the strength of his contours and the richness of juxtaposed colours, a solidity in the flat image that is similar to that of sculpture.

The outbreak of war in 1914 increased the difficulties of Modigliani's life. Alexandre and other friends were at the front; his pictures did not sell; his already delicate health was deteriorating because of his poverty, feverish work, and the abuse of alcohol and drugs. He was in the midst of a troubled affair with the English poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years, from 1914 to 1916. He was assisted, however, by the art dealer Paul Guillaume and especially by the Polish poet Leopold Zborowski, who bought or helped him to place a few paintings and drawings.

Modigliani was not a professional portraitist; for him the portrait was only an occasion to isolate a figure as a kind of sculptural relief through firm and expressive contour drawing. He painted his friends, personalities of the Parisian artistic and literary world, but also unimportant people: models, servants, girls from the neighbourhood. In 1917 he began painting a series of large femalenudes that, with their warm, glowing colours and sensuous, rounded forms, are among his best works. In December, Berthe Weill organized a one-man show for him in her gallery, but the police judged the nudes indecent and had them removed.

His last love affair began in the same year, 1917, with the young painter Jeanne Hébuterne, with whom he went to live on the Côte d'Azur. Their daughter Jeanne was born in November 1918. This was also a happy period for his painting, which became increasingly refined in line and delicate in colour.A more tranquil life and the climate of the Mediterranean, however, did not restore the artist's undermined health. After returning to Paris in May 1919, he became ill in January 1920 and 10 days later died of tubercular meningitis. Next day, Jeanne Hébuterne killed herself and an unborn child by jumping from a window.

Little known outside avant-garde Parisian circles, Modigliani seldom participated in official exhibitions, and his single one-man show was the one held in 1917 at Berthe Weill's. Fame came after his death with the 1922 exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and, later, with a monograph by the poet André Salmon.

His original sculptures, mostly in sandstone, are 25 in number; the number of drawings cannot be determined. Except for some 30 large female nudes (1916–19) and 4 landscapes (1919), his paintings are almost always portraits of relatives, artists, writers, musicians, actors, dealers, and collectors, along with many of unidentified persons. The names of the individuals portrayed may give an idea of the Montparnasse milieu frequented by the artist: Constantin Brancusi, Diego Rivera, Henri Laurens, Pablo Picasso, Chaim Soutine, Juan Gris, Max Jacob, Jean Cocteau, Jacques Lipchitz. Some—such as Paul Guillaume, Hanka and Leopold Zborowski, Beatrice Hastings, and Jeanne Hébuterne—were painted several times. Of Modigliani himself, there is only a single self-portrait, painted in 1919, shortly before his death.

Modigliani died penniless and destitute—managing only one solo exhibition in his life and giving his work away in exchange for meals in restaurants. Since his death his reputation has soared. Nine novels, a play, a documentary and two feature films have been devoted to his life.

Two films have been made about Modigliani: Les Amants de Montparnasse in 1958, directed by Jacques Becker, and Modigliani in 2004, directed by Mick Davis starring Andy Garcia as Modigliani.

Plot summary for the film MODIGLIANI (2004)

Set in Paris in 1919, biopic centers on the life of late Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, focusing on his last days as well as his rivalry with Pablo Picasso. Modigliani, a Jew, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a young and beautiful Catholic girl. The couple has an illegitimate child, and Jeanne's bigoted parents send the baby to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns. Modigliani is distraught and needs money to rescue and raise his child. The answer arrives in the shape of Paris' annual art competition. Prize money and a guaranteed career await the winner. Neither Modigliani, nor his dearest friend and rival Picasso have ever entered the competition, believing that it is beneath true artists like themselves. But push comes to shove with the welfare of his child on the line, and Modigliani signs up for the competition in a drunken and drug-induced tirade. Picasso follows suit and all of Paris is aflutter with excitement at who will win. With the balance of his relationship with Jeanne on the line, Modigliani tackles this work with the hopes of creating a masterpiece, and knows that all the artists of Paris are doing the same.

An eventual classic, 21 May 2006

Author: BigTam from United States

I saw this movie last year and watched it again the other evening. I have studied art for many years and I applaud the detail and attention paid to each moment that reflected that period. Modigliani was, by all accounts, exactly as in the movie, charismatic, a drunk, a genius, a haunted individual. Picasso was, as in the movie, a genius, a misogynist, a jealous man and very charismatic. The performances of both Garcia and Zylberstein were truthful and painfully real. I have read the critics on this movie. I'm amazed at their lack of knowledge, one can only presume, they never bothered to research and just piggy-backed the last bad critic. One critic blasted the movie saying Picasso didn't know Modigliani, yet there are photographs taken by Jean Cocteau of them together, laughing with each other -- and Picasso helped carry the coffin of Modigliani! However, I believe the movie itself will not go away as some of these art snobs would wish, but in fact, I believe it will grow through time to become a classic. My advice to those in doubt, colored by what they read, study the individuals and the period and you will be amazed to discover that, for the most part, all that you see was sadly true. Kudos to all involved and my students of art agree.

Boring!25 January 2006
Author: mitchmuse from Los Angeles, CA

How many variations on the same scene can be done? This movie attempts to set a record. Set the movie to play, then leave the room & go to bed, knowing that while you sleep, its dullness will dissipate into the empty room. Awake refreshed, & relieved that you did not waste your time on Modigliani.

P.s. If this movie were the honest truth about Modigliani's life, then it would be an absolute miracle that he painted as much as he did. He appears more indisposed than available to do anything other than stumble around drunk. The only 'feel-good' thing about this movie is 'THE END'.

Awesome, 4 November 2005

Author: countryclubchef from United States

There aren't many movies that have moved me the way this one does.The story of Modigliani is tragic but I think that if you only walk away with that you've missed the point. Modigliani loved. He loved wine, he loved Jeanne and obviously he loved art. What a free spirit! Modi died at age 35, not of a beating as the movie suggests, but due to his excesses and tuberculosis. I argue that he would have said the same thing many of us would say now {including me}"but what is life without them??" {the excesses}, for some people life without the highs just isn't worth it, even at the expense of suffering the lows. In addition the movie inspired me professionally.

Modigliani, 20 November 2005

Author: rosypetals from United States

A must-see for all romantics & artists. This one really touches your heart and soul. A very passionate movie about love, art and life. Wonderful, bittersweet love story. Love the music, costumes were great, attention to detail. Actors were excellent and Andy Garcia was terrific. I love this movie so much that I will buy it. It makes you feel as if you were there. Actors very convincing, they portrayed their characters in such a manner that was very moving. Also hope that there will be a soundtrack. Great filming locations, I felt like I was in Paris back in 1920 era. This one really stays with you.

An indubitable masterpiece!, 25 January 2006

Author: from United States

A masterpiece! A brilliant film acted with conviction and directed by Mick Davis with great skill, insight, and beauty. When I read the rambling of "professional" reviewers on their shallow conception of the artist as a basis for demeaning this film, I felt ashamed of being human. The truth is that I have never experienced a more psychologically insightful and compelling cinematic portrayal of the artistic spirit. The montage depicting artistic creation is one of the greatest in the history of world cinema. Guy Farley's music score is absolutely perfect. Complex, haunting, and enthralling! To director Mick Davis: Thank you for this magnificent film. You have truly created a masterpiece! Do not be discouraged by the negative reviews. "Professional" critics have seldom properly appreciated true genius.

Beautiful and heady, 27 October 2006

Author: clockley-1 from Australia

This is not a documentary. If you (unlike myself) are a versed art historian, you may well have issues with some of Davis's choices regarding his portrayal of famous art personalities. If, however, you simply enjoy a subtly crafted film, then this film is for you. It doesn't set out to 'explain' artistic motivations (a wise choice from Mike Davis, - for who can ever really claim to know 'why' an artist does what he/she does) but rather presents an ethereal collage of colour, sound and minimal script and allows the audience to draw its own conclusions about the life and motivations of Modigliani and those surrounding him. Garcia does a credible job of bringing Modigliani's addict soul to the screen and, for all his faults, is an eminently watchable actor throughout the 2hrs of screen time. Elsa Sylberstein is hauntingly beautiful, and the film's soundtrack is perfect.

Very well done,9 September 2007

Author: pyramidalapex from United States

Superbly acted and photographed recreation of the times, both visually and culturally.

Left me wondering where the art used in the film came from. The actress who played Modigliani's girlfriend was portrayed so well in the art that it makes me think someone created the art just for the film. But when paintings are created for films you can always tell! And here it's art of famous painters whose work and style is very well known. The paintings used in this film appeared absolutely genuine!

Ever wondered where artist's inspiration comes from? This film reveals where these important painters thought theirs was coming from--an on-the-edge lifestyle that didn't last long for reasons made clear in the film. For the record, I disagree with Messrs. Modigliani and Picasso . . .

Fascinating! Great job Andy! Great film!

A Superb Film!, 24 September 2007

Author: Pablo999 from United States

Ignore any negative criticism you may have read about this film and just see it. Andy Garcia gives his best performance ever in this piece. The entire cast is excellent, the costumes are amazing, and the sets are fantastic. The audience is drawn into the genius of Modigliani very eloquently, and the tension between Picasso and Modigliani is portrayed in an engaging and creative manner. I won't continue on with affected accolades on this one. Simply put, it's a great rent! Of course, you can criticize any film. I would have liked to have seen a little more of the unique artistic genius of Modigliani portrayed, but that is a minor gripe

This movie is a joke, 1 January 2006
Author: aroberts1 from United States

Being an art history major and artist I was excited to see this movie. Within the first five minutes of viewing I was very put off by the over the top over acting. Garcia is not convincing and the script is frustrating. Even if Modigliani did have soooo much bravado in real life, he surely had some complexity or depth of character to justify it. I asked myself, "Who wanted this film made and why?" The director clearly had no interest in the arts, or history or even Modigliani. An artist’s life is simply not believable and portrayed with such ridiculous over dramatization I stopped watching after the first hour. I have watched many docudramas about the art world and have never seen one so badly done as this. I have never felt so disappointed with a film.

A classic tale of alcohol-induced tragedy, 23 June 2006

Author DougThorburn from Northridge, CA

"Do you know what love is? Real love? So deeply you'd condemn yourself to eternity in hell? I do and I have." So began Jeanne Hebuterne's narration of the story of her lover, artist Amedeo Modigliani. Few movies with obvious addicts at their center excite, but this one does - because of the ease with which we can relate to the codependent, Hebuterne (played endearingly by Elsa Zylberstein), who is drawn imperceptibly into the abyss. It's a classic tale of the seeming incomprehensibility of misbehaviors keeping close people off balance, making it easy to induce them to do things they would never in their right minds consider.

Initially, Modigliani (played by Andy Garcia in a terrific role) is outwardly eccentric, exciting and charming. The visceral appeal and seduction proves impossible for Hebuterne to resist and she falls in love with Modigliani almost at first sight. Happy though he may initially appear, he increasingly becomes consumed by remorse when able to see what the aftermath of his misbehavior has wrought. When his contemporary Pablo Picasso asks after an encounter, "Why do you hate me so much?" Modigliani responds, "I love you Pablo. It is myself I hate." He tells Hebuterne, "I have nothing for you. I am nothing." When she responds, "So you'll just run away?" he bluntly states, "That's what I do best." And so it goes, with Modigliani apparently growing to believe that irresponsible behavior comprises his real self, which he loathes during moments of lucidity, while Hebuterne sees through to the real Modigliani, who is brilliant and caring.

Yet it isn't Hebuterne who tells him to stop drinking entirely; even Picasso suggests he "drink in moderation," which, as a person with alcoholism, he cannot do in the long run. It is Modigliani and Hebuterne's young son who tells him, "If you keep drinking, you'll kill us both." Although it seems an insightful observation for a child, other addiction experts (I say "other," because I've authored four books on the subject) have pointed out that child-victims see the potential for annihilation far more clearly than do others, including the spouse who is blinded by alcoholic charm and the decency they see underneath the muck of addiction. While Modigliani's binges are so apparent that everyone around him is aware of the problem, the cure - complete cessation - eludes.

His most destructive behavior generally involves periodic abandonment of his wife and child for opium and booze. However, knowing we cannot predict how destructive an addict may become or when (one of the themes of my first book, "Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse"), we should not be surprised when at one point Modigliani is put into a straitjacket. Nor should we be shocked when he shows up four days late to paint a portrait of a benefactor, although desperately in need of funds. Later, pleading for money so he can see a doctor, a friend asks him to promise he will not drink it away. Despite his doctor's admonition that if he continues to drink and smoke opium he will not live another year, his lungs already at half capacity due to having had tuberculosis as a child, his thirst for the drugs is insatiable. In typical alcoholic fashion, when told to stop drinking and to concentrate on painting, the egomaniac created by the alcoholism responds that no one can tell him what to do.

Some critics object that the movie is confusing, alternating back and forth in time with numerous flashbacks and what may be hallucinations; but this is analogous to the life of the alcoholic, who leads a confused Jekyll and Hyde existence. While Modigliani isn't violent toward his family, the psychological abandonment conveys the experience of many victims: verbal and emotional abuse does more damage and lasts far longer, perhaps because it's easier to leave physically and detach emotionally from a violent addict. This could explain the classically tragic end. Because alcoholism provides the most certain tragedy, tragedy makes good cinema and the conflicting effect on the codependent is, for once, accurately portrayed, this is one of the best of the overtly alcoholic genre.

A magnificent production, 19 May 2005

Author: shm140 from United States

A film as magnificent, tender, and powerful as the artist, whose life story it tells. Andy Garcia deserves an Oscar for portraying Modigliani's tortured, yet tender soul. Elsa ____stein (cannot recall her last name) who plays Modigliani's wife is disarming and powerful. Omid Djalili as Picasso delivers a wonderful performance and proves himself to be worthy of playing side-by-side with Andy Garcia. The acting, directing, the sound, the music, the dialogs, the cinematography all come together to create a masterpiece that transports you to the life and times of great artists such as Modigliani, Picasso, Rivera, and many more in the early part of the 20th century. You can easily lose yourself in the passion of the movie. Listen to the music. While Edith Piaff's song is beautiful and nostalgic, the ending song of the film is mesmerizing

Wow. A great flick., 29 October 2005

Author: artzau from Sacramento, CA

Andy Garcia has always been a risk taker, playing bad guys, good guys, rats, heroes and unafraid to jump into a role that is well in the margin. Here, we find him as the enigmatic Amedeo Modigliani, the self-destructive brilliant and troubled artist of the Lost Generation hanging out in Paris after WW1. Too, the wonderful and beautiful Elsa Zylberstein favors us with a wonderful performance, departing from her usual French films. The Persian actor Omid Djalili is wonderfully arrogant and petty as Picasso, as are all of the primarily European cast.

Shown with all their warts and moles are the great painters, Picasso, Rivera, Matisse, Utrillo and the redoubtable Gertrude Stein, poet and literary critic, and Jean Cocteau, the film maker. It was an exciting era that produced some of the 20th century's greatest art and this film gives us an artistic glimpse into that world of troubled and mad world of creative individuals absolutely refusing to compromise their individuality. Of particular interest is the scene where Picasso takes Modigliani to see Renoir, the great impressionist, who has retired crippled and aging to a country villa. As they approach the room where the old man sits in a wheel chair, Picasso says, "Come and meet God." While a serious art historian might quibble with some liberties with the recorded facts, e.g., Picasso is shown with a grudgingly mutual respect more so than the chroniclers of that time report, the film does capture that cyclone of creative genius that abounded in post-war Paris at that time.

A great love story, if not entirely factual, 25 May 2005

Author: lizliz from United States

Modi and his wife had a deeply dysfunctional relationship in real life, not the idealized one we see on screen, but that's not the point. Anyone going to see this movie expecting a documentary about a painter is in the wrong theater. It may also not be an accurate portrayal of the artist himself and what motivated him. Maybe it's too hard to convey that on screen. Who alive could tell Davis who the real Modigliani was anyway? This is a love story, pure and simple, and on that level, it succeeds. Yes, there are the inconsistent accents, yes the baby is a little young. And no, a painter would never break a treasured brush in half to celebrate the completion of a painting. That out of the way, the music is perfect, amazing, gutsy and wonderful. Zylberstein is brilliant and deserves a great deal of recognition for her portrayal of Jeanne, Modi's wife. Garcia is fantastic; subtle, beautiful, deep. The supporting actors, particularly the ones who played Renoir and Picasso, were a delight. Like life and love, the film is funny, oblique, moving. and tragic. The cinematography is gritty and gorgeous, like life at the turn of the century. Go see this film and enjoy.

BAD is a euphemism..., 22 January 2006

Author: psydux from France

This grotesque portrayal of the Parisian life of artists is a waste of time. I loathed this movie for the following reasons.

First: the clichés. The couple dancing in the dark at night in the street, the little boy (Modigliani as child), Picasso being the first one to recognize Modi's talent (He applauds first), the punchline "I 'll paint your eyes when I know your soul"...I'm pretty sure the director lost a bet and had to include as many clichés as possible. Horrible.

Second: Elsa Zilberstein. What a terrible actress...especially when she screams. Totally unbearable. But she's never as bad as Modigliani's agent.

A little too clichéd, 10 May 2005

Author: niklawrence from Belgium

The look of this film is wonderful. The sets, costume, lighting are all richly done and excellent. The acting is good but the actors don't have much to work with. All the standard clichés about struggling artists in Paris in the 20's are shown here. The tortured genius, the noble poverty, the absinthe-sodden café culture. However, it all looks so good it doesn't ring true. It's portrayed as we would all like Paris in the 20's to have been, not necessarily as it really was. Modigliani in real life was so poor he was forced to move from one dive to another but here his apartment seems a dream. As for the plot it centres around his animosity with Picasso but we are never told why there is such rivalry between them. Also, his refusal at one point to work for someone who has money but no artistic appreciation strains another cliché to breaking point. Although it looks lovely in the end the film was disappointing. It's a film of misty-eyed nostalgia for arty 20's Paris but has no real substance beneath that. I guess everyone even slightly artistic would have loved to have been there at that time and this is a film that shows them what they'd like to see.

The satellites outshine the star, 11 May 2006

Author: Nozz from Israel

This is a movie about painters in Paris that tells us nothing about painting and shows us nothing of Paris. The most profound observation anyone in the movie makes about Modigliani's work is that he exaggerates the length of the neck. To add a little excitement to the mix, characters fire guns in one another's general direction (twice) and the manner of Modigliani's death is irresponsibly fictionalized. At least I consider it irresponsible, because people will come to the movie not knowing the facts and come away thinking they've learned them. Andy Garcia is to be commended for taking the title role-- Modigliani is worth a movie, and I'm sure no one set out to make it a bad one-- but he is less convincing and interesting than the supporting actors who bring Soutine, Utrillo, and especially Renoir to life.

Not a film for art lovers, 21 December 2005

Author: francophile_2002 from France

If you know anything about art or artists you won't like this film. To paraphrase the late Barry Took: there are thousands of films made, catering for all tastes, but most of them are for those who have absolutely no taste at all - and this is one of them. It is based on characters not events and most of the latter are invented: the film is after all a drama, not a documentary: the paucity of facts is acceptable, it is the lack of truth which makes this film so shallow. The characters are Modigliani and his contemporaries, most notably Picasso. With a few exceptions, the acting is wooden where it is not mechanical (Andy Garcia); the exceptions include Louis Hilyer as Zborowski, Jim Carter as Achille Hébuterne, Michelle Newell as Eudoxie Hébuterne and Hippolyte Girardot as Uttrillo, who all try to convince. The rest were simply not believable as the artists they were impersonating: mostly even they themselves gave every impression of not believing in what they were doing. Andy Garcia is too fat for the role of Modigliani, who at the end of his life was wasted by excess (e.g. alcohol) and illness and living in squalor on a diet of brandy and tinned sardines. Omid Djalili as Picasso is even fatter. The scenes of the artists painting are pure vaudeville - most of them seemingly getting more paint on themselves than on the canvas; this is not a total loss however since the paint looks decidedly better on them than on the finished paintings, which are dross. The picture of Jeanne which 'Modi' paints at the end is unbelievably bad and an insult to an artist who has pretensions to greatness: this is partly what I mean about lack of truth.

This is a film purporting to be about artists, made by someone who clearly knows nothing about art.

Leaving Las Paris, 16 March 2005

Author: bking099 from United States

Colorful and engaging Bio-Pic. Artist portrayals are always difficult to convey on the screen, and in this case, a painter comes across as self-serving, ultimately unsympathetic but full of great art. His oeuvre speaks volumes but his lifestyle results in some sad and destructive behavioral patterns that he never could outgrow. The scenes between the Big M and Pablo Picasso are the most interesting because of the tension created by the actors in each of the scenes; but Diego Rivera is reduced to bows and grunts. How do you portray inspiration? That's a puzzle. Too bad, too, because ultimately "M" left me mostly unmoved.
Has the film a USA distributor? And for who is the pic targeted? Wait till DVD, rent it; and then go to an art gallery.

Portrait of the Artist as a Collection of Clichés, 20 April 2005

Author: fuente-2 from Larvik, Norway

This more or less completely useless film is hopelessly stuck in a romantic (as in 19th century) view of the artist as a lonely, struggling genius. The film (if not its subject's life) is a catalogue of clichés: The miserable childhood, the penniless adulthood, the difficult love life, the threat of insanity, the critical incomprehension, the refusal to 'sell out' (possibly the most long-lived of romantic clichés, it's still thought to be relevant in the world of rock and roll) and the god-damned post mortem vindication are all present and accounted for. Add to this lookalikes of the usual suspects of Paris between world wars - Cocteau, Picasso, Gertrude Stein etc., - and an audience with the godlike Auguste Renoir and you get this: two hours of rehashed ideas trying to convince the viewer of an artist's originality by equating him with every stereotyped image of the troubled genius. This extreme conventionalism is hardly suited to the memory of an unconventional artist like Modigliani, is it?

Enjoyed the movie., 24 May 2005

Author: sjm9 from United States

It took a while for me to get into it, but by the end I really liked it a lot. It could have been more consistent and seamless -- the casting was so-so. In the first part of the movie the intensity of the characters didn't come across, but as the movie progressed, especially near the end, their emotions were more convincing and believable. The music was possibly the most passionate and moving part of the whole thing -- I hope a sound track is released. I liked the sets, the costumes and filming was pretty good. The subject matter was of particular interest to me as I am an artist. It's probably not for everyone and definitely not for those who like formula, action films

Mediocre, 23 May 2005

Author: loplop from United States

I really love Modigliani's work, so I was excited to see this movie.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be disappointing. While Andy Garcia is a good actor, he's an unconvincing Modigliani-- he looked much too clean, well-fed and robust for most of the film! The music was bland, terrible and out of place- instead of heightening the experience, it transformed most scenes into cheesy, sentimental, and trite. The ending was far too drawn out, and it only made the movie more clichéd and sentimental. Jeanne talks about her intense love for Modigliani at the beginning and end of the film, but we really hardly even get to see that-- her character is flat. Consequently, these "dramatic scenes" of her love for him come off as contrived and ineffective. Another thing I didn't like was the way the characters spoke. As a reviewer mentioned before, they switched from different languages and accents at the drop of a hat, which was weird. From American English to European accents to European language. It was annoying.

But, I liked Elsa Zylberstein as Jeanne. She looked just like a Modigliani painting. A good scene was the one where Modigliani and Picasso visited Renoir, as was the scene at Picasso's exhibition where one of Modigliani's paintings was shown.

But, overall, I feel that the movie was trying way too hard to be dramatic, artsy, and decadent and it really didn't accomplish any of it. I thought it was a rather contrived, emotionless effort that didn't do much justice to the artist

Those whom Gods love..., 16 January 2006

Author: Galina from Virginia, USA

I'd give this movie an award for the best imperfect movie I've ever seen or the most impressive movie that has grown on me as I watched it or the movie with the most clichéd ridiculous first hour that gradually picked up its momentum and become a film of rare beauty and incredible power. As the title suggests, this is a film about time and life of one of the most charismatic Artists of the last century, Amedeo Modigliani (1884 - 1920). Last April, I visited a wonderful exhibition of his works in Washington DC that hosted nearly 100 of his paintings, sculptures, and drawings. Modigliani's style is so unique and striking, distinguished by strong linear rhythms and simple elongated forms that it takes only seeing couple of his stunning, sensual and aesthetical portraits to never forget him. His name, "Amedeo", has such a beautiful and sad meaning, knowing the story of his short life. "Amedeo" means beloved by God, and he sure was, talented, charming, and charismatic. But as the saying goes, the ones whom the Gods love die young. Modigliani health was very poor, and his life style did not help it. He died from tuberculosis and meningitis when he was 35. His lover, his muse, and the mother of his daughter, 21 year old Jeanne Hebuterne who was pregnant with their second child by the time of Amedeo's death, did not want and could not survive him. On the day following Modigliani's death, she threw herself from the window on the fifth floor and killed herself...You may say, "How melodramatic" but life sometimes is more dramatic than any work of art or literature.

The casting of 49 year old Andy Garcia as 35 year old Modigliani seems a little strange but Garcia did his best working with the material. There was a moment in the movie when he addresses someone, "What is the matter with you?" with such obvious Brooklyn accent that I felt like watching "Godfather, part 4 ½". Actually, most of the dialogs in the first hour or so were rather unintentionally funny. It seemed to me that the director tried different approaches to his film. Modigliani came from Italy – we see many times the parade of clowns on the streets of his native Livorno as the recurring image that could have come from Fellini's films. Then, film looked in Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin-Rouge" direction with the songs and music from different epochs (and I said to myself, oh please, no). Davis also compares Modigliani's life with that of another Amadeus, struggling genius – child from 18th century Vienna –the film brought a Mozart / Salieri theme with a successful and rich fellow painter who comparing to Salieri happened to be a very talented Artist himself - Pablo Picasso. So, for the first hour, the film struggled (almost as much as its protagonist) but then, something happened. The film's creator realized that the Artists are interesting not only because of their personal problems, weaknesses, struggles, preferences but first and foremost because of their talents, of their abilities to create, to look at the world like no one before them did, to capture their impressions in the forms and images that even after they are long gone make our hearts beat faster, make us say, "This is beauty, this is poetry, this is perfection". The scenes of incredible power just come one after another, the scenes with few or no words spoken at all. Among them, Picasso's and Modigliani's visit to one of the titans of 19 century, August Renoir in his country mansion. Renoir was shown as the old, wheel chair bound man who had to be spoon–fed by his nurse but who obviously had sharp mind and more wisdom than both Picasso and Modigliani together. Later, there was a long scene showing young painters - Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, and Amedeo Modigliani working on their paintings for the Grand Prix de Peinture, the yearly art competition at the famed Salon des Artistes. Close to the movie's end comes my favorite scene – the opening of the Salon with the presentation of each painting – there is no rivalry, no competition any more – each work of art shines and every artist is happy to admit the talent and uniqueness of his fellow competitor.

So, what do I think of "Modigliani", the movie directed by Mick Davis? I enjoyed it and I would recommend it to others. Andy Garcia, who is not my favorite actor, won me over with his performance in spite of the problems (many) with the script. I've been always interested in the period of post War World 1 Art history when everybody who was anybody tried to be in Paris, the Art Mecca for many generations of Artists and the film's depiction of the Modigliani's contemporaries was interesting and made me want to research more about them. I'd like to see more movies with the actress Elsa Zylberstein who played Jeanne – her melancholic beauty, grace and talent are undeniable and helped to make the movie based on the Artist's life compelling, convincing, and remarkable.

P.S. According to Pablo Picasso's personal physician, the Artist who had survived Modigliani by more than 50 years, whispered his name on his deathbed.

Witnessing the Bohemian Life of Paris, 1919, 6 October 2005

Author: gradyharp from United States

MODIGLIANI is a difficult movie to review. It has some very strong features such as the cinematography that captures the artsy feeling of Paris 1919 and, despite excesses, manages to create some visuals of hallucinations and the wild madness of painters painting canvasses; a rather complex peak into the lives of several of the more revolutionary artists of the time; and a substantial feeling for the interchange between artist and model. The main problem with the film is a script that is banal, limited in historical validity, and concentrating on a single rather silly motif of a painters' competition.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884 - 1920) was a Jew from Italy who moved to the mecca of Paris to create his brilliant portraits and sculptures of nudes and extended neck women and girls. His genius lay in his unifying the spiritual Eastern iconography (tribal art and Judaism) of his heritage with the Christian (read Catholic) traditions. What this film delivers is a rather annoying portrait of a young consumptive artist who drank and drugged himself to death at a moment in his career when renown was just beginning. The reasons for his place in art history are merely hinted all for the sake of the Hollywood biopic.

Andy Garcia plays Modigliani with a modicum of élan and a plethora of

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