Portrait of a Young Girl 1910

Amedeo Modigliani painted this portrait of a young girl, we don’t know when, or with what. Look at the gentle hues of blue, brown and orange, and the girl’s face, seemingly emerging from the canvas. The brushstrokes are soft, almost caressing, and the paint appears thinly applied. I wonder if Modigliani was searching, shifting, and experimenting as he made it. The painting has an unfinished quality. Did he just stop, put down his brush, and walk away? The lines that define her features – the long nose, the almond eyes – feel tender, melancholic, and full of grace. The painting feels strangely modern, even though it could be 100 years old! Modigliani was a bit of an outsider, looking at art through a different lens. It’s like he’s saying, “Here’s another way to see, another way to feel.” And he was, like all painters, in conversation with the past, trying to reinvent it, make it his own.