Caryatid: Rose and Blue

Caryatid: Rose and Blue by Amedeo Modigliani Italian, 1884-1920, is an important study created during a critical phase of the artist's career, spanning 1912-1914. This work reflects Modigliani’s intense engagement with classical and non-Western sculptural forms, particularly the influence of his contemporary, Constantin Brâncuși, and archaic Greek art. The figure, a caryatid, is derived from classical architecture where a draped female figure serves as a supporting column. Modigliani distills this ancient subject into a monumentally simple, elongated form, demonstrating his developing modernist aesthetic.

Though classified as a painting, the work utilizes a complex mixed media approach. The artist employed watercolor, pen and black ink, and graphite, adding touches of brown crayon onto tan wove paper that was itself pieced and laid down on layered supports. This technique gives the surface a subtle density, enhancing the figure’s static, architectural presence. The expressive title derives from the delicate washes of rose and blue applied to the simplified planes of the figure and background, lending warmth to an otherwise stark geometric structure.

This masterwork by the Italian artist demonstrates a synthesis of ancient motifs and early 20th-century avant-garde sensibilities. Modigliani’s highly influential depictions of caryatids from this period were central to his transition from sculpture back to painting. The figure’s clean contours and compressed space align with the modernist movements then circulating in Paris. The painting is proudly maintained in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a historically significant image, the composition is widely utilized in scholarship, and high-quality prints of this Modernist piece are often available through public domain and museum archives.