Mitsou: Forty images

by Balthus

English, French (translation)

Genres: Art, Poetry

Paperback

First published August 1, 1921

About the author

Balthasar Kłossowski de Rola, known as Balthus, was an esteemed Polish/French modern artist.

Reviews

[Marie Sobalvarro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rilke, cats, Balthus -- what's not to like?

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is always diverting to find something: a moment before, and it was not yet there. But to find a cat: that is unheard of! For you must agree with me that a cat does not become an integral part of our lives, not like, for example, some toy might be: even though it belongs to us now, it remains somehow apart, outside, and thus we always have:

life + a cat,

which, I can assure you, adds up to an incalculable sum.

It is sad to lose something. We imagine that it may be suffering, that it may have hurt itself somehow, that it will end up in utter misery. But to lose a cat: no! that is unheard of. No one has ever lost a cat. Can one lose a cat, a living thing, a living being, a life? But losing something living is death!

Very well, it is death.

Finding. Losing. Have you ever really thought what loss is? It is not simply the negation of that generous moment that had replied to an expectation you yourself had never sensed or suspected. For between that moment and that loss there is always something that we call—the word is clumsy enough, I admit—possession.
Now, loss, cruel as it may be, cannot prevail over possession; it can, if you like, terminate it; it affirms it; in the end it is like a second acquisition, but this time totally interiorized, in another way intense.

Of course, you felt this, Baltusz. No longer able to see Mitsou, you bent your efforts to seeing her even more clearly.

Is she still alive? She lives within you, and her insouciant kitten’s frolics that once diverted you now compel you: you fulfilled your obligation through your painstaking melancholy.

And so, a year later, I discovered you grown taller, consoled.

Nevertheless, for those who will always see you bathed in tears at the end of your book I composed the first—somewhat whimsical—part of this preface. Just to be able to say at the end: “Don’t worry: I am. Baltusz exists. Our world is sound.

There are no cats.”

[Peter Nelson-King · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a child, the painter Balthus was mentored by Rainer Maria Rilke, and when he created Mitsou, a series of 40 ink drawings depicting a story of a boy and his cat, Rilke took notice and had the series published with his own preface. The first edition is now extremely rare, but it has been reprinted a few times, including this 1984 publication by MOMA - these reprints are now also scarce, though still obtainable if you want to search and stump up a bit of cash. I highly recommend you seek this out of you are a fan of the work of Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward and Otto Nuckel, as this precocious work is one of the most touching sibling pieces to that era of wordless novels.

A young boy finds a stray cat and takes it home. It lives with the family, there are mild ups and downs, and it insinuates itself into the family's life. Then it escapes. That's the whole story, told without dialogue or words of any kind. As a piece of storytelling its simplicity is deceptive - each image has a static quality, with almost no actions moving from one "panel" to another like in cartoons. The panels are moments, some entertaining but many banal, and the effect works because of their aggregation and pacing. The cat is there for so long in the sequence, without a thought of it disappearing or dying, that its final absence is arresting, just like in life - we learn to take things for granted, and when that happens we are hurt more than we should be when they are gone.

Balthus became known in adulthood as a sort of surreal Neoclassicist, using refined figurative technique to plumb and expose subterranean elements in psychology. His métier was the shadowland of adolescence, the foggy bridge between innocence and experience, and his most famous work, or infamous, depicted young girls in erotically charged poses and symbolist spaces. Mitsou looks nothing like that work, as Balthus was still developing his technique - the ink-brush drawings have a bold, crude, Fauvist look, but he was able to capture emotions clearly and touchingly. In everything but name the set is a wordless novel, a form pioneered in the 1910's by the woodcut artist Frans Masereel and achieving a vogue in the '20's. It's curious that neither the MOMA reprint nor Wikipedia classifies Mitsou as one of these, or even mentions the similarities. Masereel was a friend of Balthus's family, so Balthus most likely knew of his work and might have been open to having the set labelled a wordless novel if it was suggested to him.

Regardless of how you classify it, Mitsou is a simple, touching story told in beautiful drawings by a precocious mind, well worth rediscovery. Its rarity is tragic, not just for fans of early modernist art but fans of graphic storytelling as well. Dover should get their hands on the set, as they have done good work reprinting Masereel and Ward's wordless novels and this would be an easy sell for them. If you have been scared by Balthus's other work, fear not, as this has no resemblance to his sometimes disturbing mature work. Check it out any way you can.

[Cobertizo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"¿Ha vivido alguna vez el hombre en el tiempo de los gatos? Lo dudo. Y os puedo asegurar que a veces, en el crepúsculo, el gato de mi vecino brinca a través de mi cuerpo, ignorándome o mostrando mi absoluta inexistencia a los objetos maravillados (...)

Encontrar un gato es inaudito. Porque el gato nunca entra de lleno en nuestra vida y en el momento en que os creéis que os pertenece del todo, el gato se queda un poco fuera. Y así será siempre: La vida + un gato. Lo cual - os lo aseguro- suma una cifra enorme

En cambio, perder un gato... No; eso no está permitido. Nadie ha perdido nunca un gato. Tú has sentido la pérdida, Balthus; no pudiendo ver a Mitsou, has empezado sin embargo a verlo más claramente ¿Acaso vive todavía? Sobrevive en tí, y su alegría de gatito indolente te dio primero gozo y ahora te obliga: has debido transformarla en tristeza laboriosa."

[Antea Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute

[p33€3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 miau

[Thomas Hübner · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.mytwostotinki.com/?p=2059

"Trouver une chose, c’est toujours amusant; un moment avant elle n’y était pas encore. Mais trouver un chat, c’est inouï! Car ce chat, convenez-en, n’entre pas tout à fait dans votre vie, comme ferait, par exemple, un jouet quelconque tout en vous appartenant maintenant, il reste un peu en dehors, et cela fait toujours: la vie + un chat, ce qui donne, je vous assure, une somme énorme. Perdre une chose, c’est bien triste. Il est à supposer qu’elle se trouve mal, qu’elle se casse quelque part, qu’elle finit dans la déchéance. Mais perdre un chat: non! Ce n’est pas permis."

"Finding a thing, that's always fun; a moment before it was not there yet. But finding a cat, that's incredible! For this cat, admit it, does not come entirely into your life, as would for example any toy while belonging to you now. It remains a little off, and it always will be: a life + a cat, that adds up to a huge sum, I assure you. Losing a thing is very sad. It has to be assumed that it is in bad condition, that it breaks somewhere, that it ends in decay. But losing a cat: no! That is not allowed."

A boy finds a stray cat, adopts it and gets more and more attached to it. The two spend a lot of time together and we see them in many everyday situations and small adventures. Then, Mitsou, the cat, disappears again; cats are doing this sometimes, so we don't need to suspect the worst. But the boy is inconsolable, searches for Mitsou everywhere, but to no avail.

A sad but everyday story of a heartbreaking loss. What makes it extraordinary is the fact that this real-life experience was made into a series of beautiful drawings by the 11-year old boy to whom it happened. Balthasar Klossowski, today known as Balthus, told this story 1919 in 40 drawings that show an already fully accomplished artist. Cats and girls proved to be his lifelong artistic interests. (His brother Pierre was a also a talented painter and a writer.) Stylistically, the drawings resemble woodcuts and a certain influence of the Flemish artist and book illustrator Frans Masereel, who at around the same time published several "novels without words", can be detected.

Rainer Maria Rilke, who was at that time the lover of Balthus' mother Baladine, added a foreword in French when Mitsou was first published in 1921 and from which the above quote is taken. Therefore the review is not included in German Literature Month. (Rilke wrote also occasionally poems in French.)

Mitsou is a very charming and beautiful book. When you love cats or when you just want to enjoy a book with beautiful illustrations, you will like this precious work very much.

Art historian Sabine Rewald, author of the book Balthus: Cats and Girls describes here how she tracked down the surviving complete set of original drawings that were shown for the first time in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York not long ago. You can see also some samples of these wonderful drawings when you click on the hyperlink.

The English edition of the book is out of print, but you can find this gem with a bit of luck in antiquarian bookstores or online shops. The French and German editions are still available.

Mitsou. Forty Images by Balthus. Preface by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Richard Miller, The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Harry N. Abrams, New York 1984

Sabine Rewald: Balthus: Cats and Girls, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2013

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vraiment pénible comme lecture. Vraiment ennuyant de l'écouter au même temps de le lire. Mon premier (et dernier?) Rilke.

[Brainard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous book, with a rather incredible history, a famous poet encourages a 13-year-old to make a book.