I saw the exhibition Modigliani: Beyond the Myth at The Jewish Museum in New York this week. I highly recommend it, it is a wonderful exhibit. (It’s only on until Sept 19th so don’t delay.) There was a twenty minute wait in line, apparently much more reasonable than a few months ago. The experience was definitely worth the wait.
One nice thing about shows that focus on the entire career of an artist is that you tend to learn more about an artist’s background than possible through just a few pieces mixed in with works by others. Modigliani died at the age of 34, but created quite a bit during his short life. Before learning about this exhibition, I had no idea that Modigliani was Jewish. One may wonder why that matters, but given the anti-Semitism he encountered once he moved to Paris, and given that much of his work focused exclusively on portraitures and an exploration of identities, it seems this part of his identity would be important for understanding his work.
Another thing I did not know about Modigliani is that he had worked as a sculptor as well. In fact, it sounds like had it not been for his poor health and the difficulty in obtaining the raw materials for his sculptures, he would have done more with that medium (and it’s unfortunate that he couldn’t). A propos sculptures, as I was looking at some of his sketchings of caryatids I started wondering about the influence of Brancusi on his work. Taking a few steps I was at the sculpture section of the exhibit, and learned that Modigliani had met Brancusi in 1909. Lucky for those in NYC, there is a Brancusi exhibition at the Guggenheim right now just a few blocks from The Jewish Museum also on until Sept 19th. (I cannot vouch for that show as I did not go see it having already seen a Brancusi exhibition in both Paris and Philly years ago, but I suspect this one is similar and thus worth seeing.)
I loved the way the pieces were laid out in the exhibit. I looked at the following three pieces right next to each other for several minutes taking a few steps back: The Italian Women, 1917; Lunia Czechowska (La femme a l’eventail), 1919; and Paulette Jourdain, 1919. (Unfortunately, I can’t find the middle piece online nor in the exhibition book. Otherwise I’d try to recreate the effect here. There are several variants with that name, the one I am looking for had a strong red background, which was in beautiful contrast with the other two pieces surrounding it.)
After the Modigliani show I decided to take a look at the permanent collection as well. The material is interesting and diverse with a focus on different historical periods, parts of the world and types of materials. One of my favorite sections was the collection of menorahs on the top floor (especially the modern versions).
Just in order to show that Crooked Timber is a big tent with room for all sorts of dissenting opinions, I saw a Modigliani exhibition at (I think) the Royal Academy a few years ago and I think that he’s bloody awful. In related news, Edward Hopper is the thinking man’s Jack Vetrianou.
The Brancusi exhibition, however, if it’s the same one that was at the Tate last year, is well worth a look.
Dissenting opinions are fine.:) But can you say more about why you think he is so incredibly awful?
I think the common thing in Modigliani, Hopper and Tara de Lempicka (whose exhibition at the RA had me actually believing I was going to vomit) is a certain use of chiascuro on flat shapes. It’s the effect which is produced in modern commercial art with an airbrush; shading next to a sharp edge which makes a flat surface look like a slightly reflective cylinder. You see it most on the cheeks and necks of Modigliani figures. The combination of the flat edge and the realistic shading gives me a kind of motion sickness. I also don’t like the hollow eyes.
Inspired by Eszter post, and thank you, I went to a site I know and downloaded 36 nearly full screen scans. Resolution good enough to notice what appears to be restoration or cleaning on the “Max Jacob” and “Seated Nude”. The scan I have on “Seated Nude” is very cracked. Perhaps the scan was Photoshopped?
Won’t post the link because I know many people, or most, have IP concerns. I admit to some conflicts, but obviously overcome them. I am not getting to New York, can’t afford a bunch of $100 art books or $20 a month subscriptions. And a 100×100 image doesn’t do it on a 21 inch monitor.
Course if I bought a book or a subscription I would possibly appreciate it more, and would get some text that might help me understand what I was looking at.
I get dsquared’s reference to Lempicka right away, but going to have to re-examine Hopper. Anomic objectification? Now I have made everyone else mad at me, but for all the faults of Bacon or Freud or Perlstein, at least they draw an emotional reaction.
Dsquared - thanks for sharing. I must agree that I don’t quite get the lack of detail in the eyes. Sometimes he adds some detail and in some cases even makes the eyes a different color or adds lines, which is outright confusing. But the other stuff you mention I like quite a bit actually. So do you not like people like Fernand Léger either? What you describe is precisely his style as well, but more so with objects instead of humans. I like Léger’s work a lot. What I like about Modigliani is that he has a very particular style and manages to make the portraits quite distinctive even though the methods don’t seem that elaborate (I don’t mean to be naive about the painting techniques, I do actually paint so I’m quite clued in to the non-trivial aspects of portraitures). I like his use of color and shading in certain areas.. and the way he uses the background in some paintings. And his sculptures were a really pleasant surprise. A very nice mix of abstract and figurative.
Another thing I did not know about Modigliani is that he had worked as a sculptor as well
So you’d never heard of the infamous Modigliani hoax? The three Modi heads?
Just twenty years ago, 1984, in Livorno, during celebrations for the 100th anniversary of Modigliani’s birth, the curators of the exhibition got authorization to dig a canal in which it was rumoured that Modigliani had thrown away a few sculptures, before leaving for Paris. The digging started and all sorts of things were fished out - bycicles, tyres, rubbish - and it soon became a joke with the locals, as many were a bit skeptical of the attempts to find the lost Modigliani’s. Inevitably, someone had to get the idea that the search might need a little hand… And, indeed, within a few days, three sculpted heads in perfect Modigliani style were found in the canal, and the critics proclaimed these were indeed the sculptures that Modigliani had thrown away in anger before leaving the city. Several experts swore by their authenticity. A few weeks later, three Italian students came out and revealed they had made the fake Modigliani’s themselves, with a Black & Decker (the company promptly seized the occasion for ads featuring pictures of a fake Modigliani head and the slogan “see what you can do with a Black & Decker”). Just last week, the city of Livorno remembered the 20th anniversary of the hoax with an exhibition of the three fakes, one of which was stolen and then returned a few days later, in another hoax on the hoax…
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review