Beggar Woman 1909

Modigliani made this painting of a woman he called, “Beggar Woman,” with oil on canvas, sometime in the early 20th Century. Look at those browns and yellows! It’s like she’s emerging from a dark space with just a flicker of light on her face. You can really see the way he built up the paint, especially in the face, layering the yellow to make this glow. The paint feels thin, applied with quick strokes and a limited palette, giving it a sense of melancholy. See the way the brushstrokes around her eyes and mouth give a sense of heaviness? Modigliani was part of that early modernist moment, and you can see how he distorts the figure, making it both real and strange at the same time. It reminds me a little of Cezanne, but with a melancholy twist. It is as if he’s asking us to look beyond what we see, to sense a whole world of emotions.