Chapter 32 II Departure from Montparnasse to join the war (1) Villa Rose

Sulvarige: "Why did you draw only one eye in my portrait?" Modigliani: "Because you always see the world with one eye and yourself with the other." In the courtyard of the Falguier Street residential area, Fujita, Brancusi, Soutine and the Lithuanian sculptor Lipsitz are watching Modigliani carving his stone.The Italian, hammering and carving-knife in his hand, was beating long blocks of stone, and he was carving heads and caryatids.These are the "Pillars of Tenderness" that will be used to decorate the "Temple of Beauty".There were no wine bottles or glasses around him, because after three years in Paris, Amdo rarely drank.He hadn't discovered the "benefits" of hashish at the time, unfortunately he did later.After smoking marijuana, he was able to design unique color sets.Because sculpture is his real hobby, painting is not his ultimate goal.

The Italian looked at the sun, then struck again.Dust from the stones got down his throat and down his lungs, and he coughed.He tapped for a while, coughed for a while, and so on. He had to stop, fill the watering can, and spray the stone he was carving.Then beat again, coughed again.I had no choice but to throw away the tools, squat down, cover my mouth with my hands, and was finally forced to give up work. Not having enough money to buy the stone he needed, he searched for limestone in the sheds of the Italian masons who were building the new Montparnasse tower.If they wouldn't give it to him, he'd tell a few buddies to wait until nightfall and push a cart to an empty construction site to steal it.Sometimes, the construction site was under construction, and they couldn't do it. The gang went down to the subway to steal the subway sleepers, and quickly transported them back to the yard of Rose Villa.In the evening, Modigliani joined Brancusi in criticizing Rodin, accusing him of spending too much time and energy making models and leaving mountains of dirt everywhere.They thought it more natural to choose mannequins, saying that Rodin was too pedantic, while they preferred freedom and the creativity of black African art.The long deformed faces in Modigliani's works reflect the influence of black African art on his creation. (Fig. 45) People can see from his works that he was inspired by the exhibits of the Tocadero Museum of Ethnography.Traces of this art have already appeared in the works of Matisse, Picasso, Flemish and Derain. Paul Guillaume, who became Modigliani's dealer in 1914, exhibited some works in his gallery on rue Miromesnier, familiar to the tenants of the Rue Falguier neighborhood. original work.Georges Charenthal said: One day, he was accompanied by Francis Calco in his shop, and he saw Paul Guillaume picking up a statue of the Congo, squatting in the dust and rubbing it vigorously.Calco asked Paul Guillaume to explain what he meant.

"It's very simple, in this way, it looks older." He replied without hesitation. From 1909 to 1914, Modigliani was engaged in stone sculpture, and the Romanian Brancusi was his assistant.Brancusi came to Paris on foot from Bucharest in 1904.His parents were poor peasants. He left his hometown at the age of nine and left his parents. He learned to read and write, bought tools and opened a creative workshop.Like Fujita, Zade Keane or Lipsitz, in Georges Charentauer's view, Amdo is just a sculptor.They had seen many of his sketches in blue pencil, but no one had seen him hold a paintbrush.Although Beatrice Hastings published several articles about her lover Modigliani in The New Age in 1914, she hinted in each of them that His paintings, but they still think he is not a painter, but a sculptor.His daughter Jeanne also confirmed this:

Dad's primary talent is sculpture, which he has loved since he was a child. It can be said that he was born to be an artist. [Excerpt from "Ordinary Modigliani" by Jeanne Modigliani] Modigliani's tragedy came from here: shortly before the war, he gave up this talent because the stone was too expensive, but the price of the work remained the same.If he does not eat, he may be allowed to continue his work.In particular, the dust generated by carving went straight into his lungs, and he often coughed while beating.Once, a friend found him unconscious next to a sculpture.The abundance of sunshine in Livorno, Italy, or elsewhere, did not help him either.It is his physical condition that does not allow him to continue the sculpture creation that he even dreamed about.

As a result, he was forced to give up sculpture and engage in painting.Traces of this unfulfilled desire can be found in his works from the time of the First World War and after the war, which seem to be sculptures on canvas: the purity of form, the slenderness of face and figure, the elongation of arms and neck, all Quite strangely reminiscent of the heads he sculpted between 1906 and 1913. That year, Modigliani left Rue Falguier and moved to Rue Raspail.He found a studio in a courtyard: a glass building, wind, rain and cold can pass through the gaps in all directions.He has lived there ever since, painting and reading Dante's poetry.Frozen inside, he sought shelter from the cold in the homes of wealthy artists whose portraits he had painted.In this way he could kill two birds with one stone: he had a place to live and he could use the materials of these artists to paint them.That's how he created his paintings of Franck Haviland, Leon Antenbaum and Jacques Lipsitz with his wife.As usual, he completed this last painting in just one use.But Lipsitz insists the painting is not over.Amdo retorted that if he continued to paint, he would destroy everything.Lipsitz did not budge, but his purpose was not to force the painter to continue painting, but to pay him more.Modigliani succumbed to the will of his anonymous patron, backed down.The portrait of Lipsitz and his wife is one of the few Modigliani works that were not painted in one go.

Every time he took a break from work, he drank non-stop and continued to use drugs, transitioning from hashish to cocaine.One day his friend gave him some money to buy some cocaine for the group, and he came back "extremely happy because he'd sucked it all up for them all by himself."He has no scruples about spending money, but he is very nice.Vlaminck, who has no sympathy for his critics, can attest, when he says: I know Modigliani very well.I've known him hungry, I've known him drunk, I've known him rich with a few bucks.But in every circumstance he was generous and sublime.I have never found any despicable thoughts and actions in him, but I have seen him angry when he found that money, which he despised so much, has great power, and his strong will and arrogance sometimes have to be in front of money. When he surrendered, he lost his temper.

[Excerpt from "Portrait Before Death" by Maurice Vlaminck] Rosalie was the first to bear the artist's (Modigliani's) profligate fees.The Italian woman used to model for artists in Montmartre.She later opened a small bar in an old dairy on 1st Battle Street, which was packed and could seat only 25 guests.Before the war, Rosalie used to make spaghetti bolognese for the bar's regulars.These regular visitors include: the masonry workers who built the new Montparnasse area, the penniless painters and the mice who came from the nearby old stables.The source of customers is basically stable. If you come to consume animals, the price will remain the same. If you find it inappropriate, please go elsewhere.Rosalie has a brain and she does things in her own way.She has quick hands and eyes, sees all directions, and listens to all directions. She is always concerned about the food on the stove, and at the same time takes care of the four tables with maternal eyes. Now she is called a restaurant; when someone knocks on the door, she opens it; She closes it immediately; she welcomes all the poor and rejects the stingy ones who take advantage of their cheapness and the hipsters who pretend to be Americans.

Among the regulars, she has a special affection for a dog from Paris-Sud-Agueille.She knew the dog, and she knew its owner.Its owner is a worker who repairs tables and chairs.One day, the dog came to her bar, pulling a small broken cart, pushed by its owner.It took the chair repairer four days to fix all the chairs in the bar.His dog also made good use of this time, walking with a well-fed belly.Since then, as long as it is hungry, it will sniff all the way and return to Paris alone.Go back when you're full, and come back when you're hungry.This back and forth went on for twelve years.It is undoubtedly the most faithful to Rosalie who lived with Modigliani.

There was a special friendship between Rosalie and the artist Modigliani: they loved each other and constantly quarreled with each other.She accused him of drinking too much, and he continued to drink.The two of them shouted at each other, which was the greatest pleasure for the bar guests.After the quarrel, everything was the same, but the dishes were all scrapped.When he was mad with anger, the painter took off the painting hanging on the wall and tore it to pieces.The next day he regretted it so much that he brought a new one and hung it up.Maybe he then tore it up.Between them, it seemed to be just a joke, a game.Things will get even worse when Yutriro comes.It was not uncommon for the two alcoholics to be taken for a walk together by the police.In such extreme moments, Police Chief Sergeant Zamaron must intervene.

Sheriff Zamaron is a friend of the artists.He is in charge of matters related to foreigners in the Paris Police Department.The walls of his office are covered with works of art: works by Susan Valadon, Modigliani, Soutine, Chicoigne and his favorite, Utrillo. Once a painter fell into poverty, Sheriff Zamaron came forward to help him.When he was not at work, people went to see his friends at Dom or Rotonde.He often defended them against Decave, a policeman in Paris.De Kave is also an amateur art, but he only makes trouble for the painters of the Rue de Vawans.He traded his services for the painter's work.Sometimes he also bought, but only paid a deposit, and asked the painters to go to the police station to ask for the rest, but naturally no one would ask for it.

Modigliani left the police station and went to these homes, those homes, the Domme, Rotonde or Rosalie's.Sometimes he walked along the wall of the Montparnasse cemetery to a small house and went up the stairs.He knocked lightly on a door, and a young woman opened it.This is Eva Guell. Her face was covered with thick powder, trying to hide her pale complexion, she was suffering from tuberculosis.She wants to hide her pain from her lover, Picasso.For a long time, she had been afraid that he would abandon her.But Picasso remained faithful to her.He accompanied Eva to the doctor and accompanied her to the hospital.The two of them spent the first months of the World War in the south of France.They rarely leave the street where they live.In the tavern, Picasso was often insulted by soldiers on vacation. They didn't understand why this strong man didn't go to the front line. He must be a coward who was greedy for life and afraid of death. The windows of Picasso's studio face the Montparnasse Cemetery.A rather large room filled with palettes, paints and brushes.In order to avoid the shortage of raw materials during the war, the artist has sufficient storage, and four to five hundred canvases are placed along the bottom of the wall.The various papers that Picasso needed to use for sticker painting covered the ground tightly. He kept drawing, not only because at that time his work was closer to black African art than cubism, but also the objects, the chairs, the walls were still bare... He couldn't bear any primitive space. He was wearing sports shorts, leaning against the window, his face stretched out, looking very sad.Not because of the war, which he never talked about except to ask friends about the news, but because of Eva, whose health he was distressed about. When Modigliani arrived, he was carefully looking at the envelope of a letter that the postman had just delivered.He glanced at the visitor with surprise.The Italian was expressionless and unexcited.He calmly recounted what he had done during the night before he came here.Picasso listened absently.Eva rushed to the back of the room to hide. The two painters exchanged the news they had heard: Carnville was in Switzerland; the Rosenberg brothers bought three-dimensional paintings; Gertrude Stein and Alice Douglas returned to England and then went to the Palma Islands; Vlaminck made bombs in an arsenal by day and wrote novellas by night. In particular, Picasso pointed out: "Max Jacobs never understood how people who bled and sweated for militarism and died for them could be anti-militarists." "He was conscripted." Modigliani argued. The conversation ends here.Amdo Modigliani didn't know that his passion just aroused the mind of the Spaniard Picasso.Picasso, who is preparing to fly to the top, has forgotten his own dissolute life in the "laundry boat" era.Amdo also didn't know that a few months later, during a bombing, due to lack of canvas, but eager to paint, Picasso actually covered a work by an Italian painter and painted a still life painting on it. Ten minutes after Modigliani arrived, there was absolutely nothing to say between the two men.Modigliani turned and left Picasso's studio, went down the stairs, and disappeared beyond the fence of the courtyard wall. Picasso then looked at the envelope of the letter he had received before the Italians arrived.It was a used envelope, which is the thrifty practice of the friend who wrote the letter.This is one of his most loyal friends.The image of the poet appeared in Picasso's mind, and he couldn't help laughing.This friend is so elegant, so well groomed, so different, so elusive; he has the passion of a priest, his showmanship of a pope, and childishness of a child, and now he walks on ice and snow , holding mud in hand, making shells! He opened the envelope and immersed himself in reading Guillaume Apollinaire's letters.That passionate letter is full of the author's sincere love for military life.