Leon Indenbaum 1915

Amedeo Modigliani painted this portrait of Leon Indenbaum, in oil on canvas, sometime in the early 20th century. Look at how Modigliani builds the face with these elongated planes and simple, almost absent eyes. You can see the strokes, the way he’s pushing and pulling the paint to find a form that’s both representational and intensely stylized. The texture here is crucial; it’s not about smoothness or blending, but about the physicality of the paint itself. Notice how the edges of the face are defined with a darker hue, creating a subtle contour that emphasizes the figure's elongated features. There’s a kind of vulnerability in those blank eyes, a sense of the subject being exposed, which I find so affecting. It makes you think about the history of portraiture, the way artists like Modigliani were pushing against traditional notions of likeness. You can see echoes of Cézanne in the way Modigliani simplifies form to its essential components. But where Cézanne is all about structure, Modigliani is searching for a lyrical, almost haunting, beauty.