"Modigliani's drawing is suffused with the utmost elegance. He was
our aristocrat", was what Jean Cocteau wrote about Modigliani -
giving no hint of the oft-rumoured enmity between the two. In fact,
some parallels can be drawn between the artist inspired by the
Bohemian life and the one inspired by Dandyism. In their elegant
drawings, both had a tendency towards a decorative refinement of
line. Moreover, Cocteau's affinity with Modigliani is expressed in a
sensitive description of his art. "His curved line, which is often
so pale and fine that it appears to be the ghost of a line, moves
with the suppleness and grace of a Siamese cat and is never in
danger of becoming thick or awkward. It was not Modigliani who
distorted and lengthened the face, who established its asymmetry,
knocked out one of the eyes, elongated the neck. All of this
happened in his heart. And this is how he drew us at tables in the
Cafe de la Rotonde; this is how he saw us, loved us, felt us,
disagreed or fought with us. His drawing was a silent conversation,
a dialogue between his lines and ours. And from this tree, which
stood so sturdily on its corduroy-clad legs, this walking tree, so
difficult to uproot once it had taken root, the leaves fell and
covered the ground of Montparnasse. If at the end, his models began
to resemble each other, then this was in the same way as Renoir's
young girls resemble each other. We were all subordinated to his
style, to a type that he carried within himself, and he
automatically looked for faces that resembled the configuration that
he required, from both man and woman. Resemblance is actually
nothing more than a pretext that allows the painter to confirm the
picture that is in his mind. And by that one does not mean an
actual, physical picture, but the mystery of his own genius."
Cocteau's literary portrait of Modigliani once more emphasises the
great stylisation of the portraits, which began to demonstrate an
ever more perfect linear control. At the same time, Cocteau gives a
subtle impression of Modi-gliani's position within the Parisian art
scene. As a painter, he was not one of its leading figures but
always in the proximity of such figures. To put it succinctly: he
was a character. Everybody knew him, everybody had their portrait
painted by him, his art was popular, even if nobody yet knew exactly
what was so special about it.
Despite the general air of depression, the first years of the war
were more successful for Modigliani than all the years preceding it.
There is no trace at this time of the legendary isolation that would
be described in so many monographs. In 1914 Max Jacob introduced him
to the young art dealer Paul Guillaume, who had opened a gallery on
the Rue du Faubourg-St.-Honore on the Right Bank shortly before the
outbreak of war. He was exhibiting artists still virtually unknown,
such as the Russians Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) and Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964), as well as Giorgio de Chiroco (1888-1978) and
Francis Picabia (1879-1953). Paul Guillaume bought and sold
Modigliani's pictures and had him participate in many group
exhibitions at his gallery, thereby supplying the artist with
crucial support. He did not, however, put him under contract nor
hold a one man show of the Italian's work during his lifetime. Like
de Chirico and Derain, Modigliani painted his most important patron
in oil a number of times. In the Milan portrait Guillaume, hat pushed back and tie slightly askew, seems casual and
relaxed. In another portrait that Modigliani painted of Guillaume,
now in a private Paris collection, the inscription NOVO PILOTA
appears in the lower left-hand corner, a compliment that compared
Guillaume's progressive spirit with that of the aviation pioneers.
Guillaume's feel for innovations in the art world can be compared
with that of Vollard or Kahnweiler, although he never did achieve
their fame - he shot himself in 1934 at the age of forty-three. His
collection of African sculpture was attracting attention years before the outbreak of World War I. As owner
of his own gallery he became one of the most important dealers in
sculptures negres. Paul Guillaume supplied Guillaume Apollinaire
with his large collection of "Oceanic fetishes", for example.
Although Paul Guillaume's relationship with Modigliani was not as
close as with other artists, he later played a decisive role in
establishing Modigliani's fame in the United States. Through
Guillaume's acquaintance with Dr Albert C. Barnes, a number of
paintings by artists of the Ecole de Paris were acquired for the
latter's collection in Merion, near Philadelphia, in 1923. They
thereby also attracted the attention of American art museums.
Modigliani's early death meant that he himself would never enjoy the
fruits of this success, for as with Chaim Soutine, Guillaume's
picture sales to the American market would have made Modigliani a
wealthy man overnight.
