The Man with the Monocle 1918

Amedeo Modigliani painted this portrait of a man in oil on canvas; the canvas is a soft grey-blue and the man's face is peach and pink with a dark suit. It's kind of simple, really. What was Modigliani thinking when he made this guy’s face so…fleshy? I bet he mixed the paint himself, because the colours are very specific. The strokes around his lips and eyes are like gentle curves that define his features, and the dark colours around his suit make his face glow. I wonder if Modigliani was having a bad day. Why is his face so red, almost like a tomato? Maybe the guy wouldn’t sit still. Or maybe that’s just how Modigliani saw him. Artists see each other’s work, they have a silent conversation through paint. And that’s kind of cool when you think about it. Modigliani gives us permission to see what we see and feel what we feel. Painting is about ambiguity, and that's its strength.