Madame Amédée 1918

Amedeo Modigliani painted Madame Amédée with oils on canvas, with colours that glow warmly from within. I can imagine Modigliani, in his studio, seeing her, considering how the ochre background and the muted black of her dress set off her pale skin. Was she a friend? A lover? He seems sympathetic to her, to that little downturn of her mouth and the way her eyes don’t quite meet ours. He's not trying to capture a likeness so much as get to her very essence. Look how he’s built up the paint in thin layers, almost like watercolor washes. He's working within a canon, taking cues from artists like Cézanne, but it's still uniquely Modigliani; that elongated neck, that simplified form. I wonder, was he listening to jazz while he worked? I bet he was listening to jazz. Painters are always talking to one another across time, and the conversation continues to evolve through our looking and responding. Each artist leaves clues about how they think and feel, not just about the subject but about the paint itself.