(Skip to bullet points (best for students))
Born: 1908
Died: 2001
Summary of Balthus
An uncommon personality in the history of painting from the 20th century, Balthus travelled and drew from the works of other important painters of his day while at the same time pursuing a distinct independent path. Tutoring, friends with and/or collaborating with prominent creative people from various periods like Antonin Artaud, André Breton, and Rainer Maria Rilke, he developed his own sophisticated painting technique. The situations he typically portrayed were relatively conventional bourgeois indoor or outside environments, which nonetheless revealed the increased inner moods of his subjects (often young women) as well as the states of mind of the viewers.
The work of Balthus shows a devotion to traditional painting while using those methods on topics which highly controlled but frequently chargedly represent contemporary problems, showing indications of sensuality, societal transgression, and anomy.
Many philosophers and practitioners from various creative fields channel their concerns to a distillation of ideas and attitudes from people and artistic movements. Some suggestions included presentations of outstanding psychological states and licencing interpersonal meetings.
The sometimes unpleasant imagery of Balthus highlights the property of exhibiting such pieces in public museums. In the context of the French libertine avant-garde, his flagrant breaches of tabou themes were accepted but are today considered inappropriate by the liberal-minded.
His experience in set design for scenes in ballet, opera and theatre taught him of his narrational skill to give the situations he depicted in his everyday surroundings extraordinary trajectories.
His commitment in figurative imagery strengthened the importance of representational painting in a century when many creative trends turned to abstraction.
Biography of Balthus
Childhood
Balthus was born to an artistic family in Paris, France; his father was a renowned art historian, while his mother was a painter. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he was presented in the arts and social scene in Paris including his guru (and his mum’s boyfriend) the famous poet Rainer Maria Rilke. His elder brother Pierre also was a prominent artist, writer, philosopher and translator who included Georges Bataille. The interests of Bataille in transgressions – including the concepts of sado-masochism explored in the writings of the Marquis de Sade – would surely have revolved around Balthus via his brother.
As a young man, his paintings were published by Rilke in his book Mitsou (1921). This gave him a start in his early years in a life-long creative profession and was also the start of his pets.
At an early age he got fascinated with the Wuthering Heights of Emily Bronte (1847) and one of his first major efforts was to make pictures of itself as Heathcliff. Although the idea was not released on a commercial level, it provided a concept which pervades his whole work. He represents a reflecting recollection with an actual yearning in his art. Both his personal experiences as a kid and his relationship with Heathcliff’s character have affected both his work with a mythical and voyeuristic aspect.
Early Life
Clearly his early exposure of his parents to creative energy as well as his social circles pushed him to a young artistic career. During his youth, while travelling abroad and serving in the Maroccan armed forces in the early 1930s, he produced paintings.
He started to dedicate himself to the development of his paintings at his Paris studio after his military duty. During that period, he started painting with young models, notably Therese, his neighbour, who was important in several of his early works.
At its height, Paris was important to modernism, home to certain creative forms, like Cubism, which have influenced abstract contemporary art today. However, Balthus maintained his previous classical inspirations and continued to operate in a representative manner.
His first show in Paris was staged in 1934 and with a controversial start made his entrance in the world of art. Perhaps his best-known (and most famous) piece is The Guitar Lesson (1934), one of his earliest paintings to discuss serious topics with young girls.
He was pals with many of Paris’s artistic elite and his social circle included Picasso, Giacometti, Man Ray and Breton (although he was not fond of the latter). He created sets for plays by Albert Camus and Antonin Artaud and was widely recognised by these many remarkable artists as an artist.
He was then surrounded by surrealistic colleagues who tried to capture the subconscious in the person through different kinds of automatic and liberal expression. He tried to remove his own psychological condition from his art, preferring to portray it as a means to show the unconsciousness of others, including both his subjects and those who looked at them.
It is essential to take into consideration that the representation of young children, and in particular little females, was not thematically alien to its current creative environment. Despite The Guitar Lesson’s anger, its topic was based on the same concerns of other creative artists around Balthus. In instance, Ray’s photographic collage pieces included a number of sensuous postures occupied by prepubescent girls, while in his literary work Rilke addressed themes of child sexuality. In addition, painters Egon Schiele and Otto Dix openly produced young girls’ sexual images and Balthus would have known all these artists’ works.
From the start of his painting and drawing work, he instilled in his individual works aspects of concern and regard for the people portrayed in them. While his little children may seem promiscuous, the clarity and seriousness traditionally reserved for dignitaries and adults considered more valuable in portraiture are provided. Unlike his painstaking predecessors, he permeates his subjects with a knowledge of their environment and a feeling of their inner impulses and passions.
These works embody the wishes of the children shown in an item or environment that the artist has created for the wishes as a “safe” enclosure. His devotion and regard for his themes may also be seen in the assiduous methods he carefully depicts in formal compositions.
Balthus’ work as a set designer in theatre is critical for his life and artistic career, because he mastered the development of characters and stories essentially from early age by creating the physical scene for the tableaux in which they are put up (one critic referred to this aspect of the stiffly set scenes in his paintings as “button-pushing theatricality”). His own father’s expertise in theatrical design in Berlin and Munich certainly impacted his early participation in ballet, opera and theatre performances.
In 1937 he married Antoinette de Watteville, a long known man with whom he ultimately had two kids and a model for his art. But in the 1940’s war and political disturbance led to Europe, before he returned to Paris in 1946 after war, he relocated his family, first to French landscape and then to Switzerland.
Mid Life
Given his prominent creative social network, it is no wonder that his work has been on displays around the globe. The Pierre Matisse Gallery (managed by Henri’s son) was represented in New York, and his first large solo museum show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was held in 1956. His propensity to the eccentric was then well known.
In 1964, he went to Rome and joined cultural luminaries such as Federico Fellini, as Director of the French Academy at Villa Medici in Rome. In 1977 he went back to Switzerland and married his 2nd wife, the Japanese artist Setsuko Ideta, with whom he had a son who died at an early age. It was the fact that she was 35 years younger than Balthus when they married that added to the continuous air of the sensational around him.
The mysticism which survives throughout his life and life was certainly promoted by the artist himself. But it is evident that his oddities helped to his institution in the canon of art history. Scholars who concentrated their attention on his work suggested that the unconventional existence of Balthus was in fact crucial to its unique nature. While his art included subjects that many regarded as sensual and even pornographic, Balthus only ever officially addressed the assertions that made it possible for the spectator to separate him from the picture. While a public may try to discover in art, depending on the artist’s life, hidden intents and meaning, he remains dedicated to keeping distance from his works.
At 1968 he had a retrospective of his work in the Tate Gallery of London and the painter wrote them the following telegram in preparation: NO DETAILS BIOGRAPHICAL. BEGIN: BALTHUS is a painter of who is not aware. We are now ready to speak to the pictures. REGARDS. B.
While it may appear odd to have a retrospective without any personal material, it is an indication of his effort to detach artist ideas.
Both Balthus and his son rejected the idea of an erotic or pornographic work. The voyeuristic purpose perceived by the spectator for Balthus reflects the unconscious desires of the viewer rather than the artist. Therefore it was not the artist who provided this connotation if the piece was regarded as sexual.
Balthus’ son wrote about his father and said firmly that his father did not see his subjects as objects of sexual or sensual lusts, but as muses in the sense that real-life people were models for conventional painters. He refers to the numerous influences from his social group and to the long history of painting young ladies in all historical art movements.
Late Life
He continued working until his death, but with his wife, he lived a secluded existence. He died in Switzerland in 2001.
His combination of these more classical approaches to the expansionary possibilities of the 20th century developed in Surrealism and Neo-Expressionism has demonstrated the influence of his contemporaries and fellow artists such as George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. His achievements with the creation of a scene that was both highly aesthetically arranged and extremely reminiscent of severe psychological conditions, but yet under mundane circumstances, were prefigured by subsequent cinema filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock. Jacques Rivette, a New Wave film director, based his Hurlevent movie from 1985 on the work of Balthus, while François Truffaut’s Domicile Conjugal from 1970 includes a major sequence when an angry husband and wife compete over a Balthus movie.
Balthus Facts
Who Influenced Balthus?
Rainer Maria Rilke was his mentor (and his mother’s lover), and he was exposed to the Parisian arts and social scene at an early age.
Was Balthus a Surrealist?
At the time of his death in February 2001, Balthus Klossowski de Rola was 91 years old. Curator Jean Clair begins his essay for the exhibition’s catalogue by stating emphatically, “Balthus was obviously never a Surrealist.”
How Did Balthus Die?
Balthus died at the age of 92. An ongoing respiratory illness had taken its toll on him. Some consider Balthus to be the greatest realist painter of the twentieth century because of his erotic depictions of young women.
When Was Balthus Born?
29 February 1908
When Did Balthus Die?
18 February 2001
How Many Children Did Balthus Have?
Balthus had two children. In 1924, he first met her, and she served as the inspiration for the Cathy Dressing and a series of portraits. When Thaddeus (born in 1942) and Stanislaus (born in 1943) were born, they were the first generation of Klossowskis to publish books about their father, including the letters they received from Balthus.
Famous Art by Balthus
The Street
1933
An allegory of early painters such as Bosch and Brueghel’s outdoor group scenes can be seen in this tableau of urban life, which depicts a larger group of people than the more intimate couples or single individuals he usually painted. A combination of Surrealism’s mysterious effects, stiff postures and elevated atmosphere, as well as classical composition of figures in architectural space, is used to update this depiction of shared (or parallel) sociality. Using some of the techniques of Renaissance-era painting, he creates a vanishing perspective for the viewer by foreshortening the individual figures at their various depths in a precise layout of proportions. Otto Dix’s ambiguous portraiture and Max Beckmann’s group tableaus in modern spaces were both produced at the same time, but Dix’s work is more refined.
Guitar Lesson
1934
This is a great example of how his symbolic works caused some viewers uncomfortable and is an example, if not the last one, of how he used young girls in his paintings. This work was originally presented during one of his earliest exhibitions in Paris, but was not on display in public as it was last seen in New York in 1977 with the exposed lower body of a prepubescent girl and the hinting of a sexual alliance with the lady on whose lap she rested.
The guitar in question is lying on the floor, as the instructor grabs her teenage student’s hair and touches her (dangerously close to her bare vagina) as if she were an instrument to be played. When it was seen as part of Balthus’ first show in Paris, this disturbing depiction of paedophilia sparked a sensation. No one has ventured to place it on display since 1977 because it is both shocking and divisive. It has been shared between museums and collectors, but it has never been displayed. This would have enraged the late Balthus, who said that his work could only be seen and not written about.
All About Guitar Lesson by Balthus
Girl and Cat
1937
Early paintings by Balthus were often the studies of Therese Blanchard, a little girl with her cat or alone. The Therese in Girl and Cat (1937) shows a sensual knowledge much above her young years, with her upright skirt and exposed position, so her ambivalence can be felt about herself and about the circumstance in which she finds herself. Her eyes appear to challenge the viewer’s attention, but yet glance slightly off the centre, as though the girl’s doubt undermined her apparent trust. At the same time, this gives the picture a kind of moral ambiguity. Is the spectator watching a private moment voyeuristically or does her posture imply that she should be viewed? Because of the times and the contemporary emphasis on the modern, disenfranchised man following World War I, this little girl and her ennui may suggest the artist’s efforts, via a more traditional figurative painting technique, to reconcile modern issues with alienation.
Therese Dreaming
1938
The piece was produced the year following Girl and Cat and near the conclusion of Therese’s time. While this female is in a similar situation to the previous piece, the composition has an increased feeling of agitation for the subject. Her eyes are closed and the viewer’s face is turned away. The physique of Theresa is more defined as an adult; she has longer legs and her face and arms have lost excess weight. Overlapping the title’s dreaming suggestion her face expressions indicate a combination of potential ecstatic pleasure and an unsure, unpleasant or even painful reaction to undesired common sensory experiences.
Pierre Matisse
1938
Aside from painting young girls and cats, Balthus also painted portraits of some of the most notable cultural figures of the early twentieth century, including many of his friends. His father, Henri Matisse, was a well-known painter, and Pierre Matisse ran a successful gallery in New York City, where he displayed his works. Following his 1938 solo show at the gallery, Balthus became more of an international name, thanks in part to Matisse’s promotion of his work.
Girl at a Window
1957
When it comes to interpersonal intensity, this painting of a younger woman is mellow, but it still represents a psychological state that is more akin to the romantic sublime, as a result of Balthus’ trips to the French countryside and Switzerland. Frederique Tison, a young model who worked with him at the time, appears in Girl at a Window (1957).
It seems that even his brushstrokes in this softer and less tightly controlled approach to image-making with paint have been influenced by the rich atmosphere of the outdoor surroundings. Despite the fact that the model is facing away from the viewer and is fully clothed, there is none of the overt sexuality present in some of his earlier works such as Therese Dreaming or Guitar Lesson.
Nude with a Guitar
1986
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. 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.
BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)
Best for Students and a Huge Time Saver
- An uncommon personality in the history of painting from the 20th century, Balthus travelled and drew from the works of other important painters of his day while at the same time pursuing a distinct independent path.
- Tutoring, friends with and/or collaborating with prominent creative people from various periods like Antonin Artaud, André Breton, and Rainer Maria Rilke, he developed his own sophisticated painting technique.
- The situations he typically portrayed were relatively conventional bourgeois indoor or outside environments, which nonetheless revealed the increased inner moods of his subjects (often young women) as well as the states of mind of the viewers.The work of Balthus shows a devotion to traditional painting while using those methods on topics which highly controlled but frequently chargedly represent contemporary problems, showing indications of sensuality, societal transgression, and anomy.Many philosophers and practitioners from various creative fields channel their concerns to a distillation of ideas and attitudes from people and artistic movements.
- Some suggestions included presentations of outstanding psychological states and licencing interpersonal meetings.The sometimes unpleasant imagery of Balthus highlights the property of exhibiting such pieces in public museums.
- In the context of the French libertine avant-garde, his flagrant breaches of tabou themes were accepted but are today considered inappropriate by the liberal-minded.His experience in set design for scenes in ballet, opera and theatre taught him of his narrational skill to give the situations he depicted in his everyday surroundings extraordinary trajectories. His commitment in figurative imagery strengthened the importance of representational painting in a century when many creative trends turned to abstraction.
Information Citations
En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.
