While in Toronto, I took the opportunity to go see “Mamma Mia”, a musical created to showcase many Abba songs. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The two lead roles (the bride to be and her mom) were amazing both in voice, dance and good looks! Some of the costumes were hilarious. There was a lot of energy and humor. A good show!
I also had the chance to see the Modigliani exhibit at the Art Gallery. I had always associated his name with portraits of women with long necks but I knew little about the man and his work. First of all he was very good looking. This is something that always surprises me when I see photographs of people I thought had lived a very long time ago. I found out that he was born in 1884, which made him 3 years younger than Picasso but his career was much shorter as he died at 35. He was born in Italy amid a cultured Jewish family. He moved to Paris to try his luck. This is where he lived a bohemian life of drink, drugs and women but also where he produced the bulk of his creations. He painted and he sculpted, but he has been remembered more for the latter. He painted almost exclusively portraits. Many of them with elongated necks and faces empty eye sockets, yet despite shadows and details he managed to convey the model’s personality.
He painted people he knew, people he met in cafés, he painted for food and lodging and sometimes he painted hired models. This was the case for the nudes he painted and who are not identified as any of the women of his entourage. Those nudes created quite a stir when one of them was hung in the window of the gallery where Modigliani was having his first show. It is interesting to see once again how with very little details he succeeds in creating a very sexual mood.