Seated nude with a Shirt 1917

Amedeo Modigliani painted this seated nude, holding a shirt, sometime in the early twentieth century. The shapes are simple, almost like you could cut them out with scissors. The forms are outlined, and the colours are muted, like they’ve been turned down a notch. The painting is all about the process. You can almost feel Modigliani figuring it out as he goes along. Look at the shirt, how the paint is thick and blobby in places, creating a kind of relief, almost like sculpture. It's not about being photographic, it's about the feeling of paint on canvas. There’s a tension between the flat, simplified forms and the more expressive, textured areas. The way the face is elongated relates to the whole composition, pulling the eye upwards. It feels like he’s searching for something, not quite resolved. Modigliani’s nudes remind me a bit of Picasso’s, though less angular. Both were trying to find new ways of seeing the human body, moving away from traditional, academic styles, and using paint as a means of exploration. It’s all about the conversation and exchange of ideas across time.