The Mystery of the Instinctive

I like painting faces. When I first began to draw, way back in the day,

I used Betty Edward's "Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain"

as my personal tutorial and faithfully did all of the exercises. But to this day,

the art of Modigliani has been my best teacher and continued inspiration. Anyone

who follows my blog has seen my Modigliani inspired  portraits. I have tried

to paint his ladies many many times
and anyone who has been to my home has seen
the evidence on my walls!  I am always  surprised and amazed

to see more deeply into his work and realize again and again what a true master 

he was. I know that he is considered by some as a mere "caricaturist", at best.

 I'm definitely not one of them. I agree with Meryle Secrest who wrote in 'Modigliani: A Life':

"...he was trying to reduce to the irreducible minimum the essence of personality without

losing it altogether."  " Slanted heads, eyes and mouth almost horizontal

and the curvature of the nose make it almost vertical. Regardless of these artifacts,

the portrait is subtle and descriptive as a figurative portrait,

but it has the directness and expression of abstract art. This facial construction is one 

of the most important inventions of modern art."

Modigliani wrote in one of his sketchbooks:

"What I'm seeking is not the real and not the unreal but rather

the unconscious, the mystery of the instinctive in the human race."
"The mystery of the instinctive"; isn't that a wonderful line?
Noel Alexander, son of Modigliani's friend and patron
calls this statement Modigliani's artistic credo.

I have been spending time 'copying' some

of his portraits. But there is really no copying.

I happily painted these faces, knowing

all the while I wasn't able to do them any justice.
But I like spending time with them.
What I see in  Modigliani's portraits is genius
and grace, softness and stillness, poetry and purity
and love. Love, not in the romantic sense, but
love as an ideal,  a soul love that he witnessed in his models.
It remains an elusive element in most art,
something many artists, (including moi!) can only grasp at.

Once I had downloaded the photographed efforts

on the computer, I could see much too much detail,

too much paint, too much of my own bad habits.

So I digitally altered the photos, took out the color

and then added a little back in. I like them better now.

Will probably try to paint them again, and again!
My intention is not to replicate an exact likeness, but
rather to try to capture the feeling, or my own sense of the piece.

The point is not to imitate this artist or any other.
The lesson is seeing , making my own discoveries,
and experiencing the pleasure of being in the zone
and finding my own connections in work that I truly admire.