Post-Van Gogh Retrospective:
Visiting Van Gogh Series

Dr. T.F. Chen

Modigliani Visiting Van Gogh
Oil on canvas
40" x 50"
1991

Modigliani: "Self-Portrait,"(1919), Coll. Mr. & Mrs. Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinbo, San Paolo;
"Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne,"(1919), Private Collection;
"Reclining Nude with Hands behind her Head,"(1917), Perls Galleries, New York

Van Gogh:
"Tarascon Diligence,"(1888), The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundaton, Inc.;
"Daubigny's Garden,"(1890), Museum of Art, Hiroshima;
"Bedroom of the Artist, in Arles,"(1888), Vincent van Gogh National Museum, Amsterdam

Talented, tempestuous, and Bohemian par excellence, with an eager zeal for self-destruction (through alcohol and hashish), dedicated and handsome, poor yet charming; Amadeo Modigliani (1886-1920) emerged into the Parisien art circle in Montmartre and Montparnasse like a comet.  Although possessing an innate elegance and aristocratic manner, Modigliani often found himself penniless and would sit in a bar and sketch pencil portraits of customers in exchange for a drink.  Amid the great art movements that were developing around him - Cubism, Abstractionism, and Surrealism - Modigliani remained a traditionalist rather than a revolutionary.  Yet his originality and individuality evolved into an intensely personal style of his won.

Modigliani expressed an emotional quality and an idealized sensuality in the treatment of his unique subjects: portraits and nudes. His portraits displayed elongated necks, small heads, oval, seed-like eyes, simplified forms and distorted features.  His nudes are erotic and sensual, not like goddesses, but like adult women, very real and very physical, "the nudest of nudes."  Their bodies are distorted and elongated in an elegance of form, with graceful lines of such economy and virtuosity!

 A kind of cursed artist, Modigliani lived one year short of Vincent Van Gogh, dying at 36.  Often looked down upon and rejected by society, the two visionaries would no doubt have been good companions in life and in art. 

In Chen's  painting of "Modigliani Visiting Van Gogh," we find in the right-hand corner, a portrait of Van Gogh done by Modigliani (or rather a la Modigliani) in his simplified, but profound rendering.  To the left, we see Modigliani making a portrait of his lover, Jeanne Hebuterne, who poses in the middle of the room.  Van Gogh is absent, perhaps he is painting underneath the Midi sun.  Modigliani prefers to work in the studio, with the window closed to the outside world.  Inside the studio, Van Gogh has left two canvases:  "Tarascon Diligence" (1888), a Bohemian scene, and "Daubigny's Garden" (1890), as if an invitation to come out and work under the wall, its radiant red and brown tones reflecting into the room where the couple are happy for the visit.