Saturday, February 9, 2013

Les Maudits: Amadeo Modigliani, Claim Soutine, Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo

Modigliani is not only a legendary artist for his disturbing, short and somehow pathetic life, but for his portraits with long necks and nudes. Even though they are I really liked the long neck paintings and sculptures (I specially liked the sculpture because it seems to be an ancient African piece of art); I found them really  innovative and pleasant to the eye. His nudes are realistic and pretty much beautiful, I didn't found them problematic or inappropriately realistic, but you can't please everyone, right?

Modigliani's 'Female Head'
I think liked Soutine's food paitings even though they are made in such a marvellous technique that it really looks like the food will eat you and no the other way round, and with quite vivid oil painting colours I usually like. Nevertheless, I really liked his 'Plane Trees at Ceret' because of its abstract yet understandable style.

'Plane Trees at Ceret'

Suzanne Valadon's life of lovers sort of remind to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris's character Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a women that had affairs with pretty much every great artist of her time. Now, talking about her paintings... well, I din't like a lot her nudes, they seem to lack of something, but her painting 'Two Cats' is great (that those cats resemble my cat Puma has nothing to do with it, not at all)

'Two cats'
Valadon's son Maurice Utrillo certainly has the most lovable paintings of the whole course, and he even chose the spots of Paris that I liked the most myself! His paintings are cute, calm, peaceful and delicate, a quite precise and remarkable brushwork with oil. Hats off to him! He's surely my favourite cursed painter! Though it is a shame that people with so much talent decide to basically kill themselves with alcohol.

'Place des Abesses'




1 comment:

  1. They are a very interesting group biographically as well as aesthetically, that's for sure! No one who loves Paris could fail to respond to Utrillo.

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