From Booklist
Balthus is almost as famous for his reclusiveness and reluctance to divulge personal information as for his provocative paintings of young women, a fact his eldest son addresses with some pique in his introduction to this superb volume, the most extensive collection of his father's lustrous and enigmatic work yet published. Klossowski de Rola defends Balthus' insistence on privacy, then offers a few tantalizing biographical facts and a set of striking photographs of the artist. Readers are free, then, to study and interpret Balthus' intriguing, unsettling, brilliantly stylized, richly textured, and strongly composed street scenes, portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. His most famous paintings date from the 1930s and 1940s and feature, in his son's words, "languid adolescent" girls, images Klossowski de Rola insists are "untouchable archetypes of purity," but which are clearly erotic works of the highest order. Balthus, nearly 90 and still working, is a profoundly sensual painter, both in his handling of paint and in his subject matter. What's "pure" and magnificent here is the artist's sense of eroticism and immense talent. Donna Seaman
Book Description
"A profoundly sensual painter, both in his handling of paint and in his subject matter. What's . . . magnificent here is the artist's sense of eroticism and immense talent." —Booklist With the death of Balthus in February 2001, the world lost one of the great painters of the 20th century. This book, published in hardcover in 1996 to critical acclaim, offers the widest selection available in print of Balthus's work. The author, Balthus's son, contributes a new introduction to this expanded paperback edition, which features two additional works: Balthus's last painting, The Waiting, and the controversial Guitar Lesson of 1934. A unique collection of rare personal photographs, including images by the famed photographer Henri Cartier- Bresson, completes this tribute to one of the great artists of recent times.
Language Notes
Text: French
Balthus FROM THE PUBLISHER
"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.
Art & Photography
Book Info
