The Blue-eyed Boy

By 1916 most of the young men Modigliani knew in Paris were at the front. He had tried to enlist when the war broke out and was turned away for poor health. His lungs had been weak since childhood. So he stayed in Montparnasse and painted the people still around him, among them this unnamed child. Modigliani gives the boy the long oval face and tilted neck he used for almost everyone, then leaves the eyes as flat panes of blue with no pupils. He once said he would paint the eyes with pupils only when he knew a person's soul. The plain warm background and the child's stillness are all he offers. The picture entered the San Diego Museum of Art in 1986.