He died, lonely and penniless, at the age of 38.
A violent drunk who got into fights all the time, he was convicted of murder, and spent the last years of his life as a fugitive from justice. Most great European painters who came after him, from Rembrandt and Vermeer to the Impressionists, would be influenced by him.īut the kindest way to describe Caravaggio as a person is to say that he was a thug. Using deep shadows and brilliant light, he brought a striking vividness to his portrayals. He also transformed the way the light and the dark are depicted by painters. Caravaggio’s Bible paintings are visceral and sometimes bloody the Christian icons in his works are often shown as filthy and malnourished-an “unsettling realism”, to quote the Encyclopaedia Britannica. This was an enormous philosophical move away from the European masters, including Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who painted classically good-looking people. For his models, he hired common people off the streets, often beggars and destitutes. He painted Biblical themes, but represented the characters as contemporary people wearing contemporary clothes. Caravaggio was not only a stunning talent he practically invented much of art as we know it today. Some years ago, my daughter introduced me to the paintings of the late 16th and early 17th-century Italian painter Caravaggio (real name: Michelangelo Merisi). Modigliani and Mozart are hardly alone among great creators in their reckless debauchery and defiance of societal norms of their times. “Amedeo” is the Italian derivation of the Latin “amadeus”, which means “beloved of God”. It is of course pure coincidence, but Modigliani shares his name-Amedeo-with another bad-boy creative genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The day after Modigliani passed away, Hebuterne, who was eight-months pregnant, jumped out of a fifth-floor window, killing herself and the unborn child. In the last years of his life, he may have found stability with Jeanne Hebuterne, a young woman who was renounced by her devout Christian family for her relationship. His love life was wild-he fathered at least four children, all out of wedlock. In 2018, his Nu Couche (Reclining Nude) was sold for $157.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction. He could manage to have only one solo exhibition of his work in his lifetime and gave away many of his paintings to get meals at restaurants.
His style is original and distinctive, portraits with elongated faces with no pupils in the eyes-when asked by one of his subjects, he said: “I'll paint your eyes when I see your soul.” And the story of his short tragic life-he died in 1920 of tubercular meningitis when he was only 35-is fascinating in a very morbid way.Īn alcoholic and drug addict, he spent most of his adult life on the edge of utter penury. I am a huge fan of Modigliani’s art and have framed prints of two of his paintings on the walls of my home. I clicked on the link and learnt that the planned film is on the life of the great early 20th-century painter Amedeo Modigliani, called “Modi” by his friends.
A few days ago, I was startled by the headline of a news report that popped up on my Twitter feed, that Johnny Depp would be directing a biopic called “Modi”.
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