Balthus
Balthus | |
---|---|
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola | |
watercolor | |
Notable work | The Street (1933–35) The Mountain (1937) Nude Before a Mirror (1955) |
Spouse(s) | Antoinette de Watteville (Married 1937 - Divorced 1966), Setsuko Klossowska de Rola (Married 1967) |
Children | Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, Thaddeus Klossowski de Rola, Harumi Klossowski de Rola |
Awards | Praemium Imperiale |
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (February 29, 1908 – February 18, 2001), known as Balthus, was a Polish-French modern artist. He is known for his erotically charged images of pubescent girls, but also for the refined, dreamlike quality of his imagery.
Throughout his career, Balthus rejected the usual conventions of the art world. He insisted that his paintings should be seen and not read about, and he resisted attempts to build a biographical profile.[1] Nevertheless, towards the end of his life he took part in a series of dialogues with the neurobiologist Semir Zeki, conducted at his chalet at Rossinière, Switzerland and at the Palazzo Farnese (French Embassy) in Rome. They were published in 1995 under the title La Qûete de l'essentiel,[2] and in them he gives some of his views on art, painting and some other painters. See also Ref.[3]
Biography
Early years
Balthus was born in Paris, in 1908, to Prussian expatriate parents. His given name was Balthasar Klossowski – his sobriquet "Balthus" was based on his childhood nickname, alternately spelled Baltus, Baltusz, Balthusz or Balthus.
His father,
Balthus's mother
Balthus's older brother Pierre Klossowski (1905–2001) became a noted writer and philosopher.
The Klossowski children grew up in an art-world environment, with frequent visits to their household by famous artists and writers, including Rilke,
Overall, Balthus had an idyllic memory of these early childhood years, which were disrupted when, shortly after the First World War began in 1914, the family were forced to leave Paris in order to avoid deportation due to their German citizenship. They settled first in Switzerland, later in Berlin.[10]
In 1917 his parents separated, and his mother moved with the two boys to Geneva. They lived in a modest flat at 11, rue Pré-Jérôme, a comfortable neighborhood.[11] About a year later his mother became the lover of Rilke. Rilke was very impressed with the young "Baltusz"'s artistic talent, and helped him to publish his first work in 1921, at the age of 13. This was a book titled Mitsou which included forty drawings by Balthus and a preface by Rilke. The comic-book-style pictures depict the story of a young boy who loses his beloved cat. The themes of the story foreshadowed Balthus's lifelong fascination with cats, along with a feeling of loss or disappearance.
At Christmas of 1921, Baladine, financially destitute, moved to Berlin with her children in order to live with her brother.
Young adulthood
In 1926 Balthus visited Florence, where he copied many frescos by the Renaissance master Piero della Francesca. This inspired an early ambitious work of his: the tempera wall paintings of the Protestant church of the Swiss village of Beatenberg which he executed in 1927.
From 1930 to 1931 Balthus served in the French army in
In 1933 he moved to Paris, taking a studio in the Rue de Furstemberg. Later he would move to another studio at the nearby Cour de Rohan. Balthus showed no interest in
Early on his work was admired by writers and fellow painters, especially by André Breton and Pablo Picasso. His circle of friends in Paris included the novelists Pierre Jean Jouve, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Joseph Breitbach, Pierre Leyris, Henri Michaux, Michel Leiris and René Char, the photographer Man Ray, the playwright and actor Antonin Artaud, and the painters André Derain, Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti (one of the most faithful of his friends). In 1948, another friend, Albert Camus, asked him to design the sets and costumes for his play L'État de Siège (The State of Siege, directed by Jean-Louis Barrault). Balthus also designed the sets and costumes for Artaud's adaptation for Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci (1935), Ugo Betti's Delitto all'isola delle capre (Crime on Goat-Island, 1953) and Barrault's adaptation of Julius Caesar (1959–1960).
In 1937 he married Antoinette de Watteville, who was from an influential aristocratic family from Bern. He had met her as early as 1924, and she was the model for the aforementioned Cathy Dressing and for a series of portraits. Balthus had two children from this marriage, Stanislas (born 1942) and Thaddeus Klossowski (born 1944), who recently published books on their father, including the letters by their parents. Stanislas, known as "Stash", became a figure in swinging London and Paris in the 1960s.[13]
Champrovent to Chassy
In 1940, with the invasion of France by
Later years
As international fame grew with exhibitions in the gallery of Pierre Matisse (1938) and the Museum of Modern Art (1956) in New York City, he cultivated the image of himself as an enigma.[citation needed] In 1964, he moved to Rome where he presided over the
In 1977, he moved to
The photographers and friends Henri Cartier-Bresson and Martine Franck (Cartier-Bresson's wife) both portrayed the painter and his wife and their daughter Harumi (born 1973) in his Grand Chalet in Rossinière in 1999.
Balthus was one of the few living artists to be represented in the Louvre, when his painting The Children (1937) was acquired from the private collection of Pablo Picasso.[14][15]
He co-authored a book of dialogues with the neurobiologist Semir Zeki, entitled La Quête de l'essentiel.
He died in
Style and themes
Balthus's style is primarily classical. His work shows numerous influences, including the writings of
Many of his paintings show young girls in an erotic context. Balthus insisted that his work was not erotic but that it recognized the discomforting facts of children's sexuality. In 2013, Balthus's paintings of adolescent girls were described by Roberta Smith in The New York Times as both "alluring and disturbing".[16]
Influence and legacy
His work has influenced several contemporary artists, notably Duane Michals[17] and Émile Chambon. He has also influenced the filmmaker Jacques Rivette of the French New Wave, whose film Hurlevent (1985) was inspired by Balthus's drawings made at the beginning of the 1930s: "Seeing as he's a bit of an eccentric and all that, I am very fond of Balthus (...) I was struck by the fact that Balthus enormously simplified the costumes and stripped away the imagery trappings (...)".[18]
His widow,
A reproduction of Balthus's Girl at a Window (a painting from 1957) prominently appears in
During December 2017, a public petition was circulated requesting that Balthus's painting Thérèse Dreaming be removed from display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York due to its alleged explicit content and suggestive portrayal. Philip Kennicott, writing for The Washington Post on 5 December 2017, in an article titled "This painting might be sexually disturbing. But that's no reason to take it out of a museum", summarized the museum's long-standing position against censorship.[19] The painting had previously been on display at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany in 2007 without incident.[19]
In popular culture
- South African novelist Christopher Hope wrote My Chocolate Redeemer around a painting by Balthus, The Golden Days (1944), which appears on the book jacket.
- Stephen Dobyns's book The Balthus Poems (Atheneum, 1982) describes individual paintings by Balthus in 32 narrative poems.
- Harold Budd's 1988 album The White Arcades includes a track titled "Balthus Bemused by Color".
- Robert Dassanowsky's book Telegrams from the Metropole: Selected Poems 1980–1998 includes "The Balthus Poem".
- Thomas Harris's book Hannibal (1999, Delacorte Press) says that the character Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist, cannibal, and genius, is Balthus's cousin.
- William Minor's book The Balthus Poems (Coracle, 2018) is a minimalist, absurdist approach to his life and work.
- Joyce Carol Oates's 2018 book Beautiful Days: Stories contains the story "Les beaux jours," which contains lyrical descriptions of Balthus's paintings and imagines the life of an eleven-year-old model of Balthus.
- Maya Hawke's 2022 single "Thérèse" from her second studio album Moss is inspired by Balthus's painting entitled "Thérèse Dreaming".
- The UK print edition of Philip Pullman's short work The Collectors features Portrait de la jeune fille en costume d'amazone (1932) by Balthus as a cover image and inside print. The UK adult cover of Northern Lights (Pullman novel) also features another work by Balthus, Girl in Green and Red (1944).
Exhibitions
Balthus held his first exhibition at Galerie Pierre, Paris, in 1934. Following the ensuing scandal[
Since then, despite attempts,[22] no planned exhibition of Balthus’s work was censored or cancelled for such allegations.
Films on Balthus
- PLANETE/CNC/PROCIREP, 1996). Documentary on and with Balthus filmed at work in his studio and in conversation at his Rossinière chalet. Shot over a 12-month period in Switzerland, Italy, France and the Moors of England.
References
- ^ "Art". The New Yorker. 2 September 2013.
- OCLC 406589116.
- OCLC 43950788.
- ^ Weber, 1999, p. 60.
- ^ Sabine Rewald, Balthus: Cats and Girls, p.19
- ^ Rewald 1984, p. 11
- ^ Weber 1999, p.60.
- ^ Weber 1999, p. 520
- ^ Weber 1999, p. 52.
- ^ Weber 1999, p. 35, 53.
- ^ Weber 1999, p. 37.
- ^ Balthus lessons – five controversial works by the French artist Art in America, Sept, 1997 by Sabine Rewald
- ^ Peter (27 March 2012). "Prince Stash Klossowski De Rola – 1960's Peacock Style Icon". A Dandy in Aspic. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
- ^ LAtimes.com Los Angeles Times 19 February 2001
- ^ Telegraph.co.uk Telegraph.co.uk 19 Jun 2001
- ^ Smith, Roberta (Sep 26, 2013). "Infatuations, Female and Feline". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
- ISBN 0757511597.
- ^ Interview with Valerie Hazette
- ^ a b Kennicott, Philip (5 December 2017). "This painting might be sexually disturbing. But that's no reason to take it out of a museum". The Washington Post. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
- ^ Balthus Gagosian Gallery.
- ^ Heddaya, Mostafa (February 6, 2014). "Balthus Exhibition Canceled Amid Accusations of Pedophilia". hyperallergic.com. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
- ^ Neuendorf, Henri (24 February 2016). "Balthus Retrospective Condemned by Right-Wing Austrian Political Party". Retrieved 17 June 2022.
Bibliography
- Aubert, Raphaël (2005). Le Paradoxe Balthus. Paris: Éditions de la Différence
- Balthus (2001). Correspondance amoureuse avec Antoinette de Watteville: 1928–1937. Paris: Buchet/Chastel
- Clair, Jean and Virginie Monnier (2000). Balthus: Catalogue Raisonné of the Complete Works. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
- Davenport, Guy (1989). A Balthus Notebook. New York: Ecco Press
- Neret, Gilles (2003). Balthus. New York: Taschen
- Klossowski de Rola, Stanislas (1996). Balthus. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
- Rewald, Sabine (1984). Balthus. New York: ISBN 0-87099-366-6(pbk.)
- Roy, Claude (1996). Balthus. Paris: Gallimard
- Vircondelet, Alain (2001). Mémoires de Balthus. Monaco: Editions du Rocher
- Von Boehm, Gero (author) and Kishin Shinoyama (photographer) (2007). The Painter's House. Munich: Schirmer/Mosel
- Weber, Nicholas Fox (1999). Balthus, a Biography. New York: ISBN 0-679-40737-5
Further reading
- David Bowie, "The Last Legendary Painter", Modern Painters, Autumn 1994, pp. 14–33.