Amedeo Modigliani. He was the epitome of a tragic artist. An abuser of both alcohol and drugs. A carrier of severe tuberculosis. Completely destitute nearly most his life,

And the most brilliant artist I have ever known in my life. At least when sober. 

I resided in his house with him and his expectant wife, Jeanne, under the pretext of serving as an artist’s assistant. But, truthfully, instead of grinding paint or propping up easels as would the apprentices of the Renaissance period would have done, I was his unpaid housekeeper.

It was 1917, Paris, and the ripples of the Great War were dimming the city’s usually vogue, enchanting atmosphere, transforming its luminescence into a shade of murky grey. The stillness had settled over the Modigliani household, and I cringed as the sound of clinking glasses pierced the unearthly, somber quiet. I busily prepared breakfast, scraping what was left (two baguettes and a half-opened bottle of wine) and searching, in vain, for china that was not chipped or cracking. 

I set the table, though I doubted the last piece of bread would ever be touched. Jeanne, awake and vividly bustling with vigor, was already at the table and devouring the baguettes. I could sense her obvious contempt for the bland, scanty meal. We ate in silence, both gazing with longing at the unmoving threshold of crimson beads that held the man whom we sacrificed so much for. 

Once the meal was finished, I took both our plates away, yet left the third plate as it was. Brushing bread crumbs away with casual indifference, Jeanne strode back into the little corner of the room she called her studio. She was working on a painting of Modigliani, depicting him in his sober temperament. Despite the somber tones of the painting, the brooding quirks of his mouth, and mellow tone, you could see the charm that’d induced her to renounce everything material, and only grieve for his flitting love, to be the muse of his gale of creation. 

I sighed, watching with disdain as the young vixen painted. Still accustomed to the ways of her aristocratic, Catholic upbringing, and addicted to Modigliani’s self-destructive, tormented lifestyle, the raven-haired beauty was the only one who could coax out his brooding darkness. Love made strange choices, and alcohol even stranger, but their self-festering addiction for pain that they called fated love was beyond even that.  

The day passed on, I tiding up the house and she putting the finishing touches on the painting, until Modigliani stirred from his drunken sleep. A loud crash sounded as he tripped over god-knows-what. Ruffling his dark hair, and staring at us murderously with his bloodshot-eyes, he lumbered through the beaded curtain, and the door of the loft.

Jeanne hurriedly rose from her seat and rushed outside the door in a vain effort to catch him. I could vaguely hear the ensuing tirade of obscenities, and a shrill shriek piercing the ashen Parisian afternoon as something heavy slammed against the wall. 

A few moments later, Jeanne trudged back into the loft. I noticed, with horror, a trickle of blood down her neck from the side of her head. Crimson droplets stained the snow-white upholstery, as she sat upon the moth-eaten fabric. I rushed to her side, gently pressuring her wound with gauzes worn with carmine stains. My hand faltered as I saw translucent drops starting to splatter beside the crimson streaks. 

Nineteen, vibrantly vigorous and beautiful, blooming and withering only for a lone bee that flitted from blossom to blossom . . . I delicately held the devoted muse in my arms that afternoon, the only feebly glowing warmth of comfort in the too-flitting time she’d suffer before her name would be chiseled on the gates to heaven. Two blazing embryos inside a single womb, one to be sacrificed to be alive. An artist and a muse, doomed by the love both held.

It was well after Paris had fallen into a dark abyss of solitude, illuminated only faintly by the glow of the Eiffel tower, that the door to the loft creaked open again. Modigliani, reeking of alcohol and hashish softly closed the door and slightly stumbled as he made his way to Jeanne’s bed. Kneeling by her side, he gently stroked her bandaged, still faintly trickling wound. He buried his head in her blossom, and through the muffled whimpers could I make out the guilt-stricken, viscous, muddy apology.

After lighting a cigarette, he took a deep breath and turned around from the blazing spirit he’d needed to smother for him to engulf. I waited in the threshold of the still translucently crimson beads. Moderately sober again, he spotted the charred remains of the fire and gingerly stepped towards it.

“Jeanne,” he called my name with all the tenderness that’d lead me to throw away my everything for this man. “I want you to sit for me.”

I watched himself, basked in the mellow moonlight, as he blew the dust off the easel that’d been lying dormant against the wall for weeks. I hurried, bringing him stiff tubes of paint and chipped brushes, in a bubble of ecstasy at his painting again.

He roguishly grinned, he himself full of inspirational ideas and caught in the bliss of art. He gestured for me to sit down in the upholstery I had bled on a few hours before. He delicately removed the gauze from my head, softly kissing the wound as if in a gesture of apology. It did not bleed anymore. I had been exsanguinated, stiff and crisp to be a portrait.

He dragged over a wooden stool, propped up the easel and the last remaining canvas in the house. While melting the solidified paint with the warmth of the night, he quickly sketched the outline with charcoal. I sat there, still as a painted image, for him to capture my entirety.    Every breathtaking stroke of the painting reminded me of why I would let myself burn crisp to cinder then to bloom again in his flaming, vibrant hands. His concentration on each stroke, of depicting the image of whom he saw as vividly as he could . . . his works were the product of genius. And I was willing to let my dimmed eyes be blinded by his crisp, iridescent colors. 

“Finished,” he said triumphantly. His worn hands, streaked with paint, proudly help up the painting for me to see. His eyes were wincing slightly, probably from his chest pains. 

But before I could assist him, the headstrong, determined eyes of a French woman caught mine, and gazed firmly into the depths of my soul. Her pursed lips left an aura of mystery and charm, of grace and charisma yet of bold resolve. Of striking, vivid colors aglow with determination.

He gave me the apology and gratitude he could, and would never give in words this lifetime.

I looked up and saw the brilliance, and sharpness in his eyes, something that had been clouded by alcohol and smoke. The lucid, radiant talent that was continuously torn apart, and splattered with dirt by his own making. 

He strode out of the room, vibrantly iridescent with joy, into another ashen day of self-destruction. 

Note: 

Amedeo Modigliani died on January 24, 1920 at the age of 35, of tuberculosis. His wife, Jeanne Hebertune,who suffered from dissociative identity disorder before her husabdn had died, became deranged in grief and killed herself and her unborn child two days later, having walked backwards through a fifth-floor window. Their tombstone reads:

“Struck down by Death at the moment of glory.” 

“Devoted companion to the extreme sacrifice.”