Caryatid.Painting by Amdeo Modigliani

Famous Art work & Drawing by Amedo Modigalini

Caryatid – Art Work

This is a well known caryatid painting by Modigliani. In this painting, the nude is kneeling on both legs and is keeping both her arms above the head.

The artist has used fluid curving lines which gave the forms their bearing and shape. In its muted coloring, the caryatid painting has an affinity towards Cubism. The figure appears like a dancer and reminds and reminds the viewer of the mythological origin of caryatids, who had participated in the famous cult of Artemis of Kauai. Modigliani’s painted caryatid does not bear any material load and hence does not require a sturdy base. The nude’s raised arms and bowed head merely support the upper edge of the picture. In her austere grace, she is completely distanced from the real world. This work is a painting as well as a sculpture. The voluminous quality of the figure’s body illustrates the influence of Modigliani’s sculptural skills in his paintings.

Though Modigliani a large number of drawings and studies of caryatids, he had painted only a few. The motif in this painting is not the act of bearing a load, but the rhythm of parts of the female body. The artist is concerned with clear volumes and their rhythmic relationship to each other. Modigliani has depicted the caryatid entirely abstractly as a totally static figure. The painting reveals that the artist was interested only in depicting the formal pictorial qualities of the female nude.

Modigliani’s static frontal depiction of the caryatid is reminiscent of the Kore figures of the Archaic Greek period.

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