I must preface this review with the confession that I know next to nothing about art. I can recognise the classics that we all know, but beyond that I'm a total art philistine. Such therefore is the joy of the random library pick up, of coming home with a book that would never normally end up on your wish list or mount TBR.

To embarrass myself with my own art ignorance even further, it was only in the middle of reading this book that I realised I have had 2 Modigliani prints hanging on the walls of various homes for the past 15 years without knowing a jot about who had painted the originals.

Anyway, this is an odd little book, printed in smaller than normal size, and written in a poetical randomness which echoes the opium and alcohol fuelled craziness of the painter's short life. Love, drugs, prison, prostitutes, drugs, muses, murder, vagrancy - he lived a life of chaos and debauchery as all the best writers and artists have done for centuries.

3 stars - an interesting read on an artist who was previously unknown to me. But now I will forever understand the pupil-less eyes of the love of his life who stare down at me from the wall of my sun room. ( )