Title of Artwork: “Nude with a Guitar”
Artwork by Balthus
Year Created 1986
Summary of Nude with a Guitar
Balthus is one of the most controversial artists of the 20th century, this work ‘Nude with a Guitar’ is a perfect example as to why.
Within the work, we see a young girl, lying nude on a bed with a guitar. When we look at the girl, we can see she is not quite asleep, more in a state of relaxation and calmness.
All About Nude with a Guitar
Nude with a Guitar was painted in 1986, 52 years after Balthus’s most controversial piece of his career ‘Guitar Lesson‘ which was painted in 1934, and sparked outrage among people.
Balthus is well known for his paintings of young women, such as Guitar Lesson, and Therese Dreaming.
His works have been marked as widely inappropriate, and have caused controversy over the years for painting young women in such a sexually explicit manor.
Nude with a Guitar is no exception to his controversial works, as we see this young girl lying on her bed with a guitar by her side. There is such little that is known about this painting, and we have a remarkably low amount of knowledge on why he painted it, or as to who the girl is.
Nude with a Guitar was painted on a 63.8×51.2 inch canvas.
One theory is that this painting represents a ‘passionate’ love for music within the young girl, and had just finished demonstrating that love for her guitar, showing that she needs no man in her life, but rather her guitar and music is all the companionship she needs.
Another theory that is also accepted is that this is a painting of the same girl from the painting Guitar Lesson many years later, (as she is clearly a little older than the girl from Guitar Lesson, and she is reminiscing about her experience of when she was essentially played like a guitar by her music instructor, and if we look closely within the painting Guitar Lesson, we can see on the floor that there is an actual guitar, which could possibly be the same guitar that is lying on her bed in this painting Nude with a Guitar.
Unfortunately, there is just so little that is known about this painting that almost any theory as to who, why, and the meaning behind it is accepted as a thought towards the creation of the painting.
Balthus often said he wishes he could always have remained a child, as his work maintains that child’s vantage point and lying difference between innocence, and unknowingness, to eroticism and sexual encounters.
