Oil stick on paper.
I continue to learn more about Amedeo Modigliani using thumbnail sketches of his works as inspirations. In this case, I drew the head of his painting Nude with Coral Necklace after which I morphed the drawing into a young man looking to his left.
Modigliani was one in a movement departing from a representational to a conceptual way of creating. Even the artists of the late 19th century who departed from the classical philosophy with color and brush strokes continued to represent their works with a focus on a visual reality, a sunflower or human eye or mountain side were diligently represented to what the artist believed they saw. The early 20th century dramatically shifted to representing works as “types” echoing back to what has been called “primitive”.
Art is impacted by so many streams, some culturally current and some obscured by time. For Modigliani, as with many of his contemporaries, a great influence was by African and Egyptian art including masks. This can be seen with Modigliani’s elongated faces and noses. In my work I attempted to follow the cues of “Nude with Coral Necklace” in keeping the lengthened nose and half closed (squinting) left eye while converting the beads of coral to a V-neck sweater.