Balthus

by Stanislas Klossowski de Rola

With the death of Balthus in February 2001, the world lost one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. Born into an aristocratic Polish family in 1908, Balthus grew up amid the most cultivated and artistic circles of Geneva, Berlin, and Paris. Brilliantly precocious, he developed early his dual fascinations with the East and with Europe's old masters - inspirations that show in the poise and peculiar timelessness of his paintings. But his work is also suffused with an eroticism and a sense of mystery that betray more modern influences.
Balthus was an artist of unflinching integrity. Out of step with the modern movement, he pursued his artistic vision in relative obscurity, hailed by only a tiny group of connoisseurs, until the 1960s. By the mid-1980s his work had achieved international renown, but he remained acutely wary of public scrutiny. He believed passionately that his paintings were to be looked at, not read about, or read into. As a result the enigmatic aura of his art came to envelop the man himself - even when, in his later years, he finally let down his guard and allowed journalists and scholars into his magnificent chalet home at Rossiniere in the Swiss Alps.
Following his father's death, Stanislas Klossowski de Rola has written a new introduction to this book, which presents Balthus's most important paintings. New to this expanded edition are Balthus's last painting, The Waiting, and the controversial Guitar Lesson from 1934. Rare photographs show the young Balthus in his studio, while more recent images by the legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, the artist's friend, complete this tribute to one of the great artists of recent times.

Genres: Art

157 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

My hope of getting some biographical and scholarly information on Balthus from this book was quickly dashed in the brief introduction, written by Balthus’ son, that declared Balthus rejected any form of biographical sharing or critical interpretation! So we just received some general thoughts and a classic defense of the controversial paintings (they are sensual and/or innocent depictions of adolescent girls, and any suggestion they are pornographic is wrong, etc.). That may be so, but the defense seemed especially banal and slapped-on considering the previous points above. The images in the book were clear, chronological, covered his entire career, and almost definitive. (The infamous Guitar Lesson, 1934 was left out because Balthus doesn’t want it to be printed, which again seems to contradict the two points above, although his son spins it as protecting the work from misinterpretation, so who knows?) Unfortunately, my library had the first edition and not the revised edition which has more works and, from what I can see in reviews, a more insightful essay. I guess I will have to turn to other books for a more critical study, regardless of what Balthus thinks of that practice!

[Sue Clancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the subject matter within the artwork that Balthus creates is not to my personal preference - I still learned more about this business of being a professional artist by reading this book and becoming aware of how another artist thinks about artwork and art careers.

[suanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

the essay is pretty short but very impactful. i admire how he loved art until the very very end and treated the act of painting as something that transcends life. not sure if i agree with his idea that his subject matter and style has no deeper meaning, it is fishy that he was so heavily influenced by eastern styles and painted a lot of nude women and rarely any nude men, reminds me of john currin

[sweet orange books · Rating 1 out of 5]

White man asking 10-11-12 years old girls to pose naked and in sexual poses = pedophile.

The fact that he is famous is an aberration.