Woman with Scottish Dress 1916

Amedeo Modigliani painted this woman in a Scottish dress sometime in the early twentieth century, and I’m picturing him, in his studio, head tilted, brush loaded with that muted palette of reds and greens and yellows. I really get a sense of the artist's hand in this painting. It's almost like I can feel the texture of the canvas through those thin layers of paint. The paint application looks like a type of fresco, you know, where the artist lets the painting dry and applies another layer? The slight tilt of her head, the way her hands are clasped – there’s a gentle melancholy in the way she’s been captured. I wonder about the model, what was she thinking when Modigliani painted her? Modigliani’s signature elongated figures nod to the Symbolists like Gauguin, but also point toward later painters like Alice Neel. Artists are always having a conversation with one another, across time, inspiring each other's creativity. Painting lets us embrace ambiguity, and uncertainty. It allows for multiple readings. There’s no fixed meaning.