Amedeo Modigliani 

Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno, Italy, and suffered from poor health and academic struggles from a young age. He studied painting under the guidance of the painter Guglielmo Micheli. His mother, recognizing his artistic talent, supported his artistic pursuits and encouraged him to attend art schools in Florence and Venice, where he also visited museums.

In 1902, he enrolled at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1906, he moved to Paris, where he lived in the Montmartre district alongside artists such as Picasso. There, he studied sculpture under Constantin Brâncuși.

Between 1912 and 1917, Modigliani developed his distinctive artistic style characterized by elegant and concise lines to delineate the contours of subjects, followed by the application of exaggerated and refined vivid colors. Influenced by Eastern art and adopting Paul Cézanne's approach to depicting form and structure, Modigliani elongated figures in a unique manner. His portraits, though not realistic, exude a rhythmic and graceful aesthetic. Most of his portrait subjects have eyes that appear empty, leading to a French saying: "The models at this time were in a state of hypnosis." His compositions are dynamic and varied, with rich and varied colors.

His life was marked by hardship and tragedy. Due to his fragile health and financial struggles in Paris, Modigliani developed a habit of heavy drinking, leading to a life of dissipation and poverty. Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Oscar Pfister diagnosed him with severe mental illness, attributing his artistic expression to his psychological tendencies toward expressionism. Pfister stated, "When driven by the suffering experience to disgust with the external world, the known self buries itself deeply in the inner world, exaggerating itself as the creator of the world. Expressionist artists have an abnormal sense of self-importance, not out of arrogance, but as a necessary means for the lonely personality to escape from collapse. However, their paranoid self-appreciation inevitably comes with painful sacrifices."

Modigliani was eccentric, taciturn, and idle, known as one of the most restless youths in the Montmartre artist circle. He befriended the alcoholic painter Maurice Utrillo. It was said that Modigliani, a wandering and pitiful figure, squandered not only his money but also his talent. All his paintings are self-portraits and symbols of his soul. He created a way to express his emotions, and his paintings contained, or even concealed, a kind of satisfaction of desire.

Modigliani received sympathy and assistance from British poet and writer Beatrice Hastings in his life, and later married Jeanne Hébuterne.

Due to poverty and the torment of tuberculosis, Modigliani passed away at the age of 36 on January 24, 1920, in Paris. His most faithful model and wife, Jeanne Hébuterne, who had lived with him, committed suicide by jumping from a window the day after she heard of his death. In 1923, a joint burial ceremony was held for them at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.