Self-Portrait as Pierrot 1915

Modigliani’s Self-Portrait as Pierrot is all about the skin, or should I say, the painting of skin. You can almost feel the way he’s dragging that brush across the canvas, layering strokes of pink, green and ochre. It's a process of building up the form, finding the planes of the face through colour, rather than line. Look closely, and you’ll see how the texture isn’t smooth, but broken, dappled almost, with those visible brushstrokes. The slightly sad eye, feels like a gash, a scratch in the surface. I love how Modigliani embraced the materiality of paint, letting it be present, letting it be felt. In this painting, the sadness is not just in the expression, but in the very physicality of the medium. The way he abstracts and simplifies the face reminds me of Cezanne, but with a melancholy all his own. It's a reminder that art is always a conversation, a response to what came before. And in that conversation, Modigliani found his own unique voice.