Modigliani, When the Face Becomes an Event

Regularly loaned for retrospectives dedicated to Amedeo  Modigliani  (1884-1920), La Bourguignonne is a well-referenced work. Also known under its first title of the Jeune fille joufflue or Servante bourguignonne ( Burgundian Maid ), it depicts an anonymous model whose job, physical characteristic and geographical and social origin are the only characteristics that are recorded. In 1918 when Modigliani, in poor health, was sent with his family to the South of France, he diversified his models. Indeed, if his friend Chaim Soutine , also represented by the art dealer Léopold Zborowski, initially accompanied him to Cagnes-sur-Mer, Modigliani found himself isolated from the circle of artists and authors he had previously portrayed through friendship and proximity. The portraits of 1918 depict anonymous people, maids, a peasant, an apprentice, or even, a Zouave , with medals bulging on his chest, on furlough. Behind the Western Front, far from the fighting and bombing that reached Paris, Modigliani did not forget that he was one of the marginalized in more ways than one. Both a Jewish-Italian emigrant…