Amedeo Modigliani Quotes

Study our Amedeo Modigliani quotes to understand more about the complex mind of this famous artist.

We have collated below a comprehensive list of opinions, comments and written copy from Amedeo Modigliani. There are also a large number of comments about him from friends and fellow artists below, helping us to understand the man himself, but also how he was perceived in Paris at the height of his career.

Famous Quotes by Amedeo Modigliani

Always speak out and keep forging ahead. The man who cannot find new ambitions and even a new person within himself, who is always destined to wrestle with what has remained rotten and decadent in his own personality, is not a man.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

Beauty must be sought in the essential lines of form.

Creation is an act of profound inner necessity.

Every great work of art should be considered like any work of nature. First of all from the point of view of its aesthetic reality and then not just from its development and the mastery of its creation but from the standpoint of what has moved and agitated its creator.

Happiness is an angel with a serious face.

I am not interested in the anecdote, but in the human being.

I paint people not as they appear, but as they are.

I want to be a tuneswept fiddle string that feels the master melody, and snaps.

It is your duty in life to save your dream.

Life is a gift of the few to the many.

One must always be drunk — that is all that matters.

Rome is not outside me, but inside me.. Her feverish sweetness, her tragic countryside, her own beauty and harmony, all these are mine, for my thought and my work.

Sculpture is the true way of seeing form.

The function of art is to struggle against obligation.

The only real duty is to create.

There is no reality except the one contained within us.

To work is to live, and to live is to work.

What I am seeking is not the real and not the unreal but rather the unconscious, the mystery of the instinctive in the human race.

With one eye you are looking at the outside world, while with the other you are looking within yourself.

Without discipline there is no art.

Without inner vision, form is empty.

Work is the only cure for despair.

You are not alive unless you know you are living.

Your true portrait is painted in your soul.

Quotes on Amedeo Modigliani

Jeanne Hébuterne (Artist, partner and muse)

Amedeo lived only for his art.

He was gentle when he worked, intense when he thought.

He never painted without conviction.

His poverty never diminished his pride.

There was sadness in him, but also great tenderness.

When he looked at someone, he seemed to see beyond them.

Anna Akhmatova (Poet, close companion in Paris)

He carried with him an air of ancient tragedy, as if he belonged to another century.

He drew endlessly, as if afraid the vision might escape him.

In Modigliani there was pride, poverty, and an extraordinary gentleness.

People did not understand how serious his art was.

There was something hieratic about him, like a figure carved in stone.

When he spoke of art, it was with reverence, never irony.

Constantin Brâncuși (Sculptor, close friend)

He carved stone as if it were already alive.

Modigliani understood form instinctively.

Sculpture was not an experiment for him; it was a belief.

There was nothing decorative in his work — only necessity.

We spoke little, but we understood each other.

When Modigliani carved, he searched for purity.

Pablo Picasso (Friend, rival, fellow Paris modernist)

He was a true aristocrat, even in poverty.

Modigliani was not of our time — he belonged to another.

There was something tragically noble in his way of being an artist.

He followed his own law and paid the price for it.

Modigliani did not experiment; he believed.

His line was pure because it was inevitable.

Henri Matisse (Contemporary, Paris circle)

He sought simplicity where others sought complexity.

Modigliani reduced form to what was essential.

There was great discipline beneath his apparent freedom.

His portraits were severe, but never cruel.

Diego Rivera (Artist, Montparnasse contemporary)

Modigliani was consumed by his vision.

He lived poorly but thought richly.

There was nothing superficial in his art.

He worked as if driven by an inner fire.

Moïse Kisling (Painter, close friend)

He gave everything to art and kept nothing for himself.

Modigliani painted as if carving in stone.

There was a rare dignity in his poverty.

His line never hesitated.

Jean Cocteau (Poet, artist, Montparnasse observer)

Modigliani moved through Paris like a wounded prince.

He seemed already legendary while still alive.

There was silence in his faces.

Jacques Lipchitz (Sculptor, friend in Montparnasse)

He believed sculpture was the foundation of all the arts.

Modigliani lived as if time did not matter.

There was no compromise in his work.

He searched for the eternal, not the fashionable.

His drawings were sculptural even on paper.

You could feel that he suffered for form.

André Salmon (Poet, critic, early supporter)

Modigliani painted souls, not faces.

There was nobility in his poverty.

He belonged neither to Cubism nor to tradition.

His art was modern, yet outside all movements.

In Modigliani, melancholy became style.

The purity of his line was unmatched.

Nina Hamnett

He wore a black hat and a brown corduroy suit. He had curly black hair and brown eyes and was very good looking. He came straight up to me and said, pointing to his chest, 'Je suis Modigliani, Juif, Jew.' Unrolled his newspaper and produced some drawings. He said, 'Cinq francs.' They were very curious and interest-ing, long heads with pupil-less eyes.

Lascano Tegui

One night in January, 1920 was the last time I saw Modi alive. He was very drunk, his eyes were wild, and he was in one of his worst cantankerous moods, quarrelsome, abusive, and terribly emaciated. His friends wanted to take him home to the rue de la Grande Chaumiere, where Jeanne Hebuterne awaited him anxiously. But, as usual, he wouldn't listen to anybody. When he was like that, nobody on earth could do anything with him, neither Zborowski nor even his fiance.

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