[REVIEW] Modigliani: Beyond the Myth

For an exhibition with a title that claims to be iconoclastic, the Art Gallery of Ontario's exhibition Modigliani: Beyond the Myth--running from the 23rd of October to the 23rd of January--does very little to challenge the prevalent myths about the Italian-born and Paris-based painter Amedeo Modigliani. As the AGO's own flyer says,

The myth has all the epic drama of an opera: the artist as tortured genius, oppressed by chronic ill health and poverty, attempts to conquer the Parisian art world, meanwhile living a flamboyant life involving alcohol, drug abuse, and volatile relationships with women. Not only does the artist die young, but his twenty-one-year-old mistress (Jeanne Hébuterne), pregnant with their second child, falls to her own death from a fifth floor window shortly after his death. No wonder the myth lives on today more potent than ever[.]

S. (a fellow attendee, see below) noted that Modigliani must be the art world's James Dean. The exhibition's title is, I fear, pure rhetoric.

I admit to sharing in the general fondness for the France of the belle époque, more specifically for the Paris of that timeframe: the sheer density of artists, writers, thinkers, and dramatic conflicts looks fantastic in retrospect. Yes, I felt this way before I saw Moulin Rouge, though certainly that very nice film has helped give the literature on and characters of that era extra kick; handling Dan Franck's Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art at work today, I noticed on the back cover a comment excerpted from the Austin Chronicle's review which praised the title as a sourcebook on the era and the place.

I attended Modigliani: Beyond the Myth this Saturday just past, starting the tour in the estimable and enjoyable company of N. and S. from Queen's and with M. at just after two o'clock.

( Modigliani's origins. )

( The first room. )