Diego Rivera 1915

Modigliani made this tender portrait of Diego Rivera, just a few lines on a page, I'm guessing with ink. You can feel Modigliani searching for Rivera, marking his presence with line and shade. What was it like for Modigliani to draw Rivera, his friend? I always wonder what artists were thinking about when they made something. Was he relaxed, was he concentrating? Was Rivera talking? The ink is brown, not black, giving a sense of warmth, like sepia photos. You can feel the quickness of it, and even though it's just a drawing, I feel like it has a real physical presence. I mean, you can see the hand of the artist, the gesture, the touch. Painters are always in conversation with each other, echoing, borrowing, and riffing off each other's ideas across time. And that conversation never really ends, which is what makes painting so alive for me. It’s about ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations, not about one fixed reading.