Modigliani: The Pure Bohemian (June Rose)

So yeah, you know how I was reading the Story of Tea ?  Well, since I had read it before and I was halfway through it again, I decided to check to see if it had gotten less expensive on half.com so I could adopt it into my library.  Lucky duck me, I found it on the cheapo and bought it.

Since then I have relagated it to the shelf of resource.

Aaaaand I picked up three biographies/autobiographies instead at the library to tear up.

I am up to page 85 on a very interesting one: Modigliani: The Pure Bohemian.  Dude, I love Modigliani!  Well, not love love.  But as for who I enjoy in the age of the modern artists, Modigliani is the one.

I have not read about his life before so I didn't know what to expect.  His family was Jewish and Italian and he was from Livorno.  In Livorno the Jewish people had been under a special protection (unlike elsewhere) since the time of the Medicis and were encouraged to settle there and were granted equal political rights.  He used to hear and then later repeat that his family was 'bankers to the Pope'.

He had times of illness in his youth and his mother doted on him intensely.  He was the baby of the family and she took great care and showed much concern for him.  In his sickness, he convinced his mother to let him go to art school.  Since he was a bit spoiled, she allowed it.

Eventually he grew up and was given an allowance from his family so he could try to make it in Paris.  He moved so much that people who try to piece together his history have extreme difficulty in doing so.  He kept his slightly bougie attitude in the midst of the completely impoverished artists who were his peers.  In this he stood out and was never fully part of a group.  He looked up to Picasso and Matisse.  He mixed in Paris in the time of all of those modern artists (can you even imagine Paris in that time!?).

Many of the artists were going toward cubism and futurism and swearing off nudes and the old masters.  He couldn't go there.  He wanted to be a sculptor but lacked means to get supplies to do it and on the rare occasion he got his hands on some stone, he would get into coughing fits from the dust.  A sad juxtaposition, no?

So, that's where I'm at.  Wanna read it?

Keep reading, m'dears,
Ms. Daisy