Essay #1

Eunkyeong Gong
Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW (04)

29 September 2015

Modigliani’s “Jeanne Hebuterne, assise” and its ambivalent painting

 

             How much, do you think that one’s feelings and emotions can affect in his or her artistic work? As you can expect, emotion, especially a depression is a very important element of Modigliani’s paintings. Have you heard of the painter “Modigliani”? He’s a painter who was born in Italy and painted in Paris. The painter Modigliani is well-known as one of the close friends of Picasso. He married Jeanne Hebuterne, and painted a portrait for her. My favorite painting is that of Modigliani, ‘Jeanne Hebuterne, assise’. The picture shows his happiness and pain at the same time ambivalently.

Modigliani had painted the eyes of people when he thought that he knows the people well. In other words, when you can find the eye in Modigliani’s picture, there’s no doubt that the subject of the picture had a close relationship with him. I first saw the picture at the Seoul Arts Center. While seeing the exhibition of painter Modigliani, the explanations said that Modigliani usually didn’t draw people’s eyes while Modigliani was specialized in portraits. As you can see in the following picture, the picture has an ‘eye’ which is painted with emerald color. The target of the picture is his wife Jeanne Hebuterne, therefore he thought that he had an intimate relation with her, and painted her eyes to emerald, which is one of the brightest color he thought.

Also, the painting was drawn during his wife’s pregnancy. Therefore, Modigliani used bright colors while he usually used dark and gloomy colors. It means that he had a bright days of his life while painting the picture “Jeanne Hebuterne, assise” On the other hand, they were in the circumstances that it was difficult to meet each other because of their poverty and opposition of Jeanne’s parents of their marriage. However, I guess that, also because of the background, Modigliani might have felt more joy than he usually had, before when he met Hebuterne. One of the reasons why I love this painting is that the picture clearly shows his joy of meeting his loving one. When you see other pictures Modigliani had done, you can easily find out that you are getting depressed a little bit. But, this picture somewhat gives us an energy and happiness that he might have felt.

             However, there’s also one bad background detail behind the picture. After painting the picture, Modigliani’s health began to deteriorate rapidly. Soon after, he died lonely in his room and was found by one of his friend. After hearing about Modigliani’s death from his friend, his wife in the picture, Jeanne Hebuterne decided to follow him and killed herself. When I heard the long story, I felt so sorry for the baby who had gone without ever seeing the brightness of the world.

             This picture both has a positive and negative sides together. He might have been happy with his wife while drawing the picture, but because of their poverty and opposition of parents, they were having a bad end. In that way, I felt that the story of Modigliani is so similar to that of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, which is one of my favorite books either. And, that’s why I had a great interest in Modigliani’s life and this picture. Also, the picture itself clearly shows his joy of his life than any other pictures he had painted. These two factors are the main reasons why this picture is my favorite. The exhibition of Modigliani is held until November in the Seoul Arts Center. Why not go to the exhibition to see the paintings and have another idea of your own about the painter Modigliani?