Editing Amedeo Modigliani (section)

===Early literary influences===
Having been exposed to erudite philosophical literature as a young boy under the tutelage of Isaco Garsin, his maternal grandfather, he continued to read and be influenced through his art studies by the writings of Nietzsche, [[Baudelaire]], [[Giosuè Carducci|Carducci]], [[Comte de Lautréamont]], and others, and developed the belief that the only route to true creativity was through defiance and disorder.

Letters that he wrote from his 'sabbatical' in Capri in 1901 clearly indicate that he is being more and more influenced by the thinking of Nietzsche. In these letters, he advised friend Oscar Ghiglia;

<blockquote>(hold sacred all) which can exalt and excite your intelligence... (and) ... seek to provoke ... and to perpetuate ... these fertile stimuli, because they can push the intelligence to its maximum creative power.<ref name="Werner 1967 17">{{Cite book| last = Werner | first = Alfred | year = 1967 | title = Amedeo Modigliani | location = London | publisher = Thames and Hudson. | page = 17| isbn = 0-8109-0323-7}}</ref></blockquote>

The work of [[Lautréamont]] was equally influential at this time. This doomed poet's ''[[Les Chants de Maldoror]]'' became the seminal work for the Parisian [[Surrealists]] of Modigliani's generation, and the book became Modigliani's favourite to the extent that he learnt it by heart.<ref name="Mann-1980-16" /> The poetry of Lautréamont is characterized by the juxtaposition of fantastical elements, and by sadistic imagery; the fact that Modigliani was so taken by this text in his early teens gives a good indication of his developing tastes. Baudelaire and [[D'Annunzio]] similarly appealed to the young artist, with their interest in corrupted beauty, and the expression of that insight through [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] imagery.

Modigliani wrote to Ghiglia extensively from Capri, where his mother had taken him to assist in his recovery from tuberculosis. These letters are a sounding board for the developing ideas brewing in Modigliani's mind. Ghiglia was seven years Modigliani's senior, and it is likely that it was he who showed the young man the limits of his horizons in Livorno. Like all precocious teenagers, Modigliani preferred the company of older companions, and Ghiglia's role in his adolescence was to be a sympathetic ear as he worked himself out, principally in the convoluted letters that he regularly sent, and which survive today.<ref>{{Cite book| last = Mann | first = Carol | year = 1980 | title = Modigliani | location = London | publisher = Thames and Hudson. | isbn = 0-500-20176-5 | pages = 19–22}}</ref>

<blockquote>Dear friend, I write to pour myself out to you and to affirm myself to myself. I am the prey of great powers that surge forth and then disintegrate ... A [[bourgeois]] told me today–insulted me–that I or at least my brain was lazy. It did me good. I should like such a warning every morning upon awakening: but they cannot understand us nor can they understand life...<ref>{{Cite book| last = Mann | first = Carol | year = 1980 | title = Modigliani | location = London | publisher = Thames and Hudson. | isbn = 0-500-20176-5 | page = 20}}</ref></blockquote>