Chaim Soutine 1917

Amedeo Modigliani painted this portrait of Chaim Soutine with oils probably sometime in the 1910s. You can see how the brushstrokes build up the face, layering pinks and peaches to construct the planes of the face. Imagine Modigliani at the easel, figuring out the shape of Soutine's nose, extending it, making it almost comically long and monumental. I wonder what Soutine thought about this! There's something so tender in the way Modigliani painted his friend and fellow artist; see the subtle gradations of color in the face and the soft blending around the eyes. The color palette is rather muted—blacks, grays, browns, and dusky pinks—yet Modigliani manages to capture a certain liveliness in Soutine’s gaze. It reminds me of other portraits by Modigliani, like those of Jeanne Hébuterne, with their elongated forms, almond-shaped eyes, and a certain melancholy. They’re all part of a lineage, an ongoing dialogue between artists across time. It makes you wonder what these painters might have talked about as they developed their practices.