Amedeo Modigliani

A

Anna AkhmatovaJULY 17, 1975 ISSUE

I believe those who describe him didn’t know him as I did, and here’s why.First, I could know only one side of his being—the radiant side. After all I wasjust a stranger, probably a not easily understood twenty­year­old woman, aforeigner. Secondly, I myself noticed a big change in him when we met in1911. Somehow, he had grown dark and haggard.

In 1910 I saw him extremely seldom: only a few times. Nevertheless he wroteto me all winter long. He didn’t tell me that he composed verses.

As I understand it now, what he must have found astonishing in me was myability to guess rightly his thoughts, to know his dreams and other small things—others who knew me had become accustomed to this a long time before. Hekept repeating: “On communique.” Often he said: “Il n’y a que vous pourréaliser cela.”

Probably, we both did not understand one important thing: everything thathappened was for both of us a prehistory of our future lives: his very short one,my very long one. The breathing of art still had not charred or transformed thetwo existences; this must have been the light, radiant hour before dawn.

But the future, which as we know throws its shadow long before it enters,knocked at the window, hid itself behind lanterns, crossed dreams, andfrightened us with horrible Baudelairean Paris, which concealed itselfsomeplace near by.

And everything divine in Modigliani only sparkled through a kind of darkness.He was different from any other person in the world. His voice somehowalways remained in my memory. I knew him as a beggar and it was impossibleto understand how he existed—as an artist he didn’t have a shadow ofrecognition.

t that time (1911) he lived at Impasse Falguière. He was so poor that whenwe sat in the Luxembourg Gardens we always sat on the bench, not on the paidchairs, as was the custom. On the whole he did not complain, not about his

Font Size: A A A

1

completely evident indigence, nor about his equally evident nonrecognition.

Only once in 1911 did he say that during the last winter he felt so bad that hecouldn’t even think about the thing most precious to him.

He seemed to me encircled with a dense ring of loneliness. I don’t rememberhim exchanging greetings in the Luxembourg Gardens or in the Latin Quarterwhere everybody more or less knows each other. I never heard him tell a joke. Inever saw him drunk nor did I smell wine on him. Apparently, he started todrink later, but hashish already somehow figured in his stories. He didn’t seemto have a special girl friend at that time. He never told stories about previousromances (as, alas, everybody does). With me he didn’t talk about anythingthat was worldly. He was courteous, but this wasn’t a result of his upbringingbut the result of his elevated spirit.

At that time he was occupied with sculpture; he worked in a little courtyardnear his studio. One heard the knock of his small hammer in a deserted blindalley. The walls of his studio were hung with portraits of fantastic length (as itseems to me now—from the floor to the ceiling). I never saw theirreproductions—did they survive? He called his sculpture “la chose“—it wasexhibited, I believe, at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911. He asked me tolook at it, but did not approach me at the exhibition, because I was not alone,but with friends. During my great losses, a photograph of this work, which hegave to me, disappeared also.

At this time Modigliani was crazy about Egypt. He took me to the Louvre tolook at the Egyptian section; he assured me that everything else, “tout le reste,”didn’t deserve any attention. He drew my head in the attire of Egyptian queensand dancers, and he seemed completely carried away by the great Egyptian art.Obviously Egypt was his last passion. Very soon after that he became sooriginal that looking at his canvases you didn’t care to remember anything.This period of Modigliani’s is now called la période nègre.

* * *

He used to say: “les bijoux doivent être sauvages” (in regard to my Africanbeads), and he would draw me with them on.

He led me to look at le vieux Paris derrière le Panthéon at night, by moonlight.He knew the city well, but still we lost our way once. He said: “J’ai oubliéqu’il y a une île au milieu [l’île St­Louis].” It was he who showed me the realParis.

Of the Venus of Milo he said that the beautifully built women who are worthbeing sculptured and painted always look awkward in dresses.

T

When it was drizzling (it very often rains in Paris), Modigliani walked with anenormous and very old black umbrella. We sat sometimes under this umbrellaon the bench in the Luxembourg Gardens. There was a warm summer rain;nearby dozed le vieux palais à l’italien, while we in two voices recited fromVerlaine, whom we knew well by heart, and we rejoiced that we bothremembered the same work of his.

I have read in some American monograph that Beatrice X may have exerted abig influence upon Modigliani—she is the one who called him “perle etpourceau.” I can testify, and I consider it necessary that I do so, thatModigliani was exactly the same enlightened man long before his acquaintancewith Beatrice X—that is, in 1910. And a lady who calls a great painter asuckling pig can hardly enlighten anyone.

People who were older than we were would point out on which avenue of theLuxembourg Gardens Verlaine used to walk—with a crowd of admirers—when he went from “his café,” where he made orations every day, to “hisrestaurant” to dine. But in 1911 it was not Verlaine going along this avenue,but a tall gentleman in an impeccable frock coat wearing a top hat, with aLegion of Honor ribbon—and the neighbors whispered: “Henri de Régnier.”This name meant nothing to us. Modigliani didn’t want to hear about AnatoleFrance (nor, incidentally, did other enlightened Parisians). He was glad that Ididn’t like him either. As for Verlaine he existed in the Luxembourg Gardensonly in the form of a monument which was unveiled in the same year. Yes.About Hugo, Modigliani said simply: “Mais Hugo c’est déclamatoire.”

* * *

One day there was a misunderstanding about our appointment and when Icalled for Modigliani, I found him out—but I decided to wait for him for a fewminutes. I held an armful of red roses. The window, which was above thelocked gates of the studio, was open. To while away the time, I started to throwthe flowers into the studio. Modigliani didn’t come and I left.

When I met him, he expressed his surprise about my getting into the lockedroom while he had the key. I explained how it happened. “It’s impossible—they lay so beautifully.”

Modigliani liked to wander about Paris at night and often when I heard hissteps in the sleepy silence of the streets, I came to the window and through theblinds watched his shadow, which lingered under my windows….

he Paris of that time was already in the early Twenties being called “vieux

Paris et Paris d’avant guerre.” Fiacres still flourished in great numbers. Thecoachmen had their taverns, which were called “Rendez­vous des cochers.” Myyoung contemporaries were still alive—shortly afterward they were killed onthe Marne and at Verdun. All the left­wing artists, except Modigliani, werecalled up. Picasso was as famous then as he is now, but then the people said:“Picasso and Braque.” Ida Rubinstein acted Salome. Diaghilev’s Ballet Russegrew to become a cultural tradition (Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Pavlova, Karsavina,Bakst).

We now know that Stravinsky’s destiny also didn’t remain chained to the1910s, that his work became the highest expression of the twentieth century’sspirit. We didn’t know this then. On June 20, 1911, The Firebird wasproduced. Petrushka was staged by Fokine for Diaghilev on July 13, 1911.

The building of the new boulevards on the living body of Paris (which wasdescribed by Zola) was not yet completely finished (Boulevard Raspail). In theTaverne de Panthéon, Verner, who was Edison’s friend, showed me two tablesand told me: “These are your social­democrats, here Bolsheviks and thereMensheviks.” With varying success women sometimes tried to wear trousers(jupes­culottes), sometimes they almost swaddled their legs (jupes entravées).Verse was in complete desolation at that time, and poems were purchased onlybecause of vignettes which were done by more or less well known painters. Atthat time, I already understood that Parisian painting was devouring Frenchpoetry.

René Gille preached “scientific poetry” and his so­called pupils visited theirmaître with a very great reluctance. The Catholic church canonized Jeanned’Arc.

Où est Jeanne la bonne LorraineQu’Anglais brulèrent à Rouen?(Villon)

I remembered these lines of the immortal ballad when I was looking at thestatuettes of the new saint. They were in very questionable taste. They startedto be sold in the same shops where church plates were sold.

* * *

An Italian worker had stolen Leonardo’s Gioconda to return her to herhomeland, and it seemed to me later, when I was back in Russia, that I was thelast one to see her.

Modigliani was very sorry that he couldn’t understand my poetry. He suspected

H

that some miracles were concealed in it, but these were only my first timidattempts. (For example in Apollo, 1911). As for the reproductions of thepaintings which appeared in Apollo (“The World of Art”) Modigliani laughedopenly at them.

I was surprised when Modigliani found a man, who was definitely unattractive,to be handsome. He persisted in his opinion. I was thinking then: he probablysees everything differently from the way we see things. In any case, that whichin Paris was said to be in vogue, and which was described with splendidepithets, Modigliani didn’t notice at all.

e drew me not in his studio, from nature, but at his home, from memory. Hegave these drawings to me—there were sixteen of them. He asked me to framethem in passe­partout and hang them in my room at Tsarskoye Selo. In the firstyears of revolution they perished in that house at Tsarskoye Selo. Only onesurvived, in which there was less presentiment of his future “nu” than in theothers.

Most of all we used to talk about poetry. We both knew a great many Frenchverses: by Verlaine, Laforgue, Mallarmé, Baudelaire.

I noticed that in general painters don’t like poetry and even somehow are afraidof it.

He never read Dante to me, possibly because at that time I didn’t yet knowItalian.

Once he told me: “J’ai oublié de vous dire que je suis Juif.” That he was bornin the environs of Livorno and that he was twenty­four years old he told meimmediately—but at that time he really was twenty­six.

Once he told me that he was interested in aviators (nowadays we say pilots) butonce, when he met one of them, he was disappointed: they turned out to besimply sportsmen (what did he expect?).

At this time light airplanes (which were—as everybody knows—like shelves)were circling around over my rusty and somewhat curved contemporary (1889)Eiffel Tower. It seemed to me to resemble a gigantic candlestick, which waslost by a giant in the middle of a city of dwarfs. But that’s somethingGulliverish.

* * *

And all around raged the newly triumphant cubism, which remained alien toModigliani.

Marc Chagall had already brought his magic Vitebsk to Paris and CharlieChaplin—not yet a rising luminary, but an unknown young man—roamed theParisian boulevards (“The Great Mute”—as cinematography then was called—still remained eloquently silent).

* * *

“And a great distance away in the north…” in Russia died Leo Tolstoy,Vrubel’, Vera Komissarzhevskaia; symbolists declared themselves in a state ofcrisis and Aleksandr Blok prophesied:

Oh, if You children only knewAbout coldness and darknessOf the days to come….

The three whales, on which the Twenties now rest—Proust, Joyce, and Kafka—didn’t yet exist as myths, though they were alive as people.

* * *

I was firmly convinced that such a man as Modigliani would start to shine, butwhen in coming years I asked people who came from Paris about him, the replywas always the same: we don’t know, never heard of him.

Only once N. S. Gumilev, when we went together for the last time to see ourson in Bezhetsk (in May 1918), and I mentioned the name Modigliani, calledhim “a drunken monster” or something of the kind. He told me that they hadhad a clash because Gumilev had spoken in some company in Russian;Modigliani protested this. Only about three years remained for both of themand a great posthumous fame awaited both.

Modigliani regarded travelers with disdain. He considered journeys as asubstitute for real action. He always had Les chants de Maldoror in his pocket;this book at that time was a bibliographical rarity. He told me that once he wentto a Russian church to the Easter matins—he went to see the religiousprocession with cross and banners—he liked magnificent ceremonies—and that“probably a very important gentleman” (I should think from the embassy) cameup to him and kissed him three times. It seems to me Modigliani didn’t clearlyunderstand the meaning of this.

For a long time I thought that I would never hear anything about him. But I didand quite a lot.

* * *

2

3

1

2

3

4

5

In the beginning of NEP, when I was on the board of the Writer’s Union ofthose days, we usually had our meetings in A. N. Tikhonov’s office. At thattime correspondence with foreign countries began to return to normal, andTikhonov used to receive many books and periodicals. It happened that onceduring the conference someone passed an issue of a French art magazine to me.I opened it—a photograph of Modigliani…. Small cross…. There was a bigarticle—a kind of obituary—and from this article I learned that Modigliani wasa great artist of the twentieth century (as I remember he was compared withBotticelli) and that there were already monographs about him in English and inItalian. Later on in the Thirties Ehrenburg, who dedicated his verses toModigliani and who knew him in Paris later than I did, told me much abouthim. I also read about Modigliani in a book, From Montmartre to the LatinQuarter, by Carco, and in a cheap novel, whose author coupled him withUtrillo. I can say firmly that the hybrid, which is pictured in this book, does notbear any resemblance to Modigliani in 1910­1911, and that what the author didbelongs to the category of the impermissible.

And even quite recently Modigliani became a hero of a pretty vulgar Frenchfilm, Montparnasse 19. That’s extremely distressing!

Bol’shevo 1958­Moscow 1964—translated by Djemma Bider

I remember a few sentences from his letters. Here is one of them: “Vous êtes en moi comme une hantise.”

He was not known to A. Ekster (the artist, from whose school came all Kiev’s left­wing artists), or to Anrep (well­known

mosaic artist), or to N. Al’tman, who in the years 1914­1915 painted my portrait.

The New Economic Policy.

At the World Literature Publishing House, 36 Mokhovaia Street, Leningrad.

They were printed in a book, The Poetry about Eves.

© 1963­2015 NYREV, Inc. All rights reserved.

3

4

5