Balthus
Encyclopedia
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (February 29, 1908 in Paris – February 18, 2001 in Rossinière
, Switzerland), best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern art
ist.
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 any attempts made to build a biographical profile. A telegram sent to the Tate
Gallery as it prepared for its 1968 retrospective of his works read: "NO BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS. BEGIN: BALTHUS IS A PAINTER OF WHOM NOTHING IS KNOWN. NOW LET US LOOK AT THE PICTURES. REGARDS. B."
, Maurice Denis
,
Pierre Bonnard
and Henri Matisse
. His father, Erich Klossowski
, a noted art historian who wrote a monograph on Daumier
, and his mother Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro (known as the painter Baladine Klossowska
) were part of the cultural elite in Paris. Balthus's older brother, Pierre Klossowski
, was a philosopher and writer influenced by theology
and the works of the Marquis de Sade
. Among the visitors and friends of the Klossowskis were famous writers such as André Gide
and Jean Cocteau
, who found some inspiration for his novel Les Enfants Terribles
(1929) in his visits to the family.
In 1921 Mitsou, a book which included forty drawings by Balthus, was published. It depicted the story of a young boy and his cat
, with a preface by Balthus's mentor, Rilke. The theme of the story foreshadowed his life-long fascination with cats, which resurfaced with his self-portrait as The King of Cats (1935). In 1926 he visited Florence
, copying fresco
s by Piero della Francesca
, which inspired another early ambitious work by the young painter: the tempera
wall paintings of the Protestant church of the Swiss village of Beatenberg
(1927). From 1930 to 1932 he lived in Morocco
, was drafted into the Moroccan infantry in Kenitra
and Fes
, worked as a secretary, and sketched his painting La Caserne (1933).
. His paintings often depicted pubescent young girls in erotic and voyeuristic poses. One of the most notorious works from his first exhibition in Paris was The Guitar Lesson (1934), which caused controversy due to its sexually explicit depiction of a girl arched on her back over the lap of her female teacher, whose hands are positioned on the girl as for playing the guitar: one near her exposed crotch, another grasping her hair. Other important works from the same exhibition included La Rue (1933), La Toilette de Cathy (1933) and Alice dans le miroir (1933).
In 1937 he married Antoinette de Watteville, who was from an old and influential aristocratic family from Bern. He had met her as early as 1924, and she was the model for the aforementioned La Toilette and for a series of portraits. Balthus had two children from this marriage, Thaddeus and Stanislas (Stash) Klossowski, who recently published books on their father, including the letters by their parents.
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'Etat 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).
forces, Balthus fled with his wife Antoinette to Savoy
to a farm in Champrovent
near Aix-les-Bains
, where he began work on two major paintings: Landscape near Champrovent (1942–1945) and The Living Room (1942). In 1942, he escaped from Nazi France to Switzerland, first to Bern and in 1945 to Geneva
, where he made friends with the publisher Albert Skira
as well as the writer and member of the French Resistance
, André Malraux
. Balthus returned to France in 1946 and a year later traveled with André Masson
to Southern France
, meeting figures such as Picasso and Jacques Lacan
, who eventually became a collector of his work. With Adolphe Mouron Cassandre
in 1950, Balthus designed stage decor for a production of Mozart's opera Così fan tutte
in Aix-en-Provence
. Three years later he moved into the Chateau de Chassy in the Morvan
, living with his niece Frédérique Tison and finishing his large-scale masterpieces La Chambre (The Room 1952, possibly influenced by Pierre Klossowski
's novels) and Le Passage du Commerce Saint-André (1954).
(1938) and the Museum of Modern Art
(1956) in New York City, he cultivated the image of himself as an enigma. In 1964, he moved to Rome where he presided over the Villa de Medici as director (appointed by the French Minister of Culture
André Malraux
) of the French Academy in Rome
, and made friends with the filmmaker Federico Fellini
and the painter Renato Guttuso
.
In 1977 he moved to Rossinière
, Switzerland. That he had a second, Japanese wife Setsuko Ideta whom he married in 1967 and was thirty-five years his junior, simply added to the air of mystery around him (he met her in Japan, during a diplomatic mission also initiated by Malraux). A son, Fumio, was born in 1968 but died two years later.
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
.
Prime Minister
s and rock stars alike attended the funeral of Balthus. Bono
, lead-singer of U2
, sang for the hundreds of mourners at the funeral, including the President of France, the Prince Sadruddhin Aga Khan
, supermodel
Elle McPherson, and Cartier-Bresson.
, the writings and photography of Lewis Carroll
, and the paintings of Masaccio, Piero della Francesca
, Simone Martini
, Poussin
, Jean Etienne Liotard, Joseph Reinhardt, Géricault
, Ingres
, Goya
, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Courbet
, Edgar Degas
, Félix Vallotton
and Paul Cézanne
. Although his technique and compositions were inspired by pre-renaissance
painters, there also are eerie intimations of contemporary surrealists like de Chirico. Painting the figure at a time when figurative art was largely ignored, he is widely recognised as an important 20th century artist.
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.
) of the Rola coat of arms, that lived in Prussia
. This was evidently the reason for his son Balthus, to add, later, "de Rola" to his family name Klossowski
, which was in szlachta tradition (if he had lived in Poland, the arrangement of his last name would have been Rola-Kłossowski or Kłossowski h. Rola.) The artist was very conscious of his Polish ancestry and the Rola
arms was embroidered onto many of his kimono, in the style of Japanese kamon
.
According to most biographies, Balthus denied having any ethnic Jewish heritage, claiming that biographers had confused his mother's true ancestry. In Balthus: A Biography, Nicholas Fox Weber, who is Jewish, attempts to find common ground while interviewing the painter by bringing up a biographical note stating that his mother was Jewish. Balthus replied, "No, sir, that is incorrect," and explained: "One of my father's best friends was a painter called Eugen Spiro, who was the son of a cantor
. My mother was also called Spiro, but came apparently from a Protestant family in the south of France. One of the Midi Spiros - one of the ancestors - went to Russia. They were likely of Greek origin. We called Eugen Spiro "Uncle" because of the close relationship, but he was not my real uncle. The Protestant Spiros are still in the south of France."
Balthus continued by saying he did not think it was tasteful to forcefully correct these errors, given his many Jewish friends. Nicholas Fox Weber concludes in his biography that Balthus was lying about this "biographical error," though the exact reasoning behind this was never explained. Weber states that the name "Spiro" is only a Greek given name, though this is incorrect, as the personal name serves equally as a surname. Balthus consistently repeated that if he, in fact, was Jewish, he would have no problem with it. In support of Weber's view, Balthus did make dubious claims about his ancestry before, once claiming he was descended from Lord Byron on his father's side.
According to Weber, Balthus would frequently add to the story of his mother's ancestry, saying that she was also related to the Romanov
, Narischkin, and lesser known Raginet families among others, though conceding Balthus never claimed his mother's side was from a straight unmixed lineage. Despite the sensationalism with which Weber says he told these stories and the method in which Weber presents Balthus's claims, Balthus never saw himself as contradictory. The true extent of what Balthus was saying for artistic effect and what he was saying in earnest is unknown as he did not stick seriously to all his claims. Weber never interviewed Pierre Klossowski, the painter's brother, in order to confirm or deny their mother's ancestry. Weber did, however, present a quote by Baladine's lover, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke
, in which Rilke states that the Spiros were descended from one of the richest Sephardic-Spanish families. In a seemingly conclusionary note, Weber writes: "The artist neglected, however, to tell me that, in the most miserable of ironies, Fumio (Balthus's son) suffered from Tay-Sachs disease." Weber holds this up as evidence that Balthus was lying about not having Jewish ancestry, given Tay-Sachs is a heavily Ashkenazic-Jewish disease. This, of course, conflicts with Rilke's report of the Spiros being Sephardic, which Weber later says was a "Rilke embellishment" and also brings up the relevance of the preponderance of Japanese infantile Tay-Sachs, since Balthus's wife was Japanese.
, Will Barnet
, Duane Michals
, John Currin
, Eli Levin, Emile Chambon, Fred Bandekow and Elena Zolotnitsky.
He has also influenced the filmmaker Jacques Rivette
of the French New Wave
. His film Hurlevent
(1985) was inspired by Balthus's drawings made at the beginning of the 1930s. As he says in an interview with Valerie Hazette: "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 (...)".
A reproduction of Balthus's Girl at a Window (a painting from 1957) prominently appeared in François Truffaut
's film Domicile Conjugal (Bed & Board, 1970). The two principal characters, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud
) and his wife Christine (Claude Jade
), are arguing. Christine takes down from the wall a small drawing of approximately 25 x 25 cm and gives it to her husband: Christine: "Here, take the small Balthus." Antoine: "Ah, the small Balthus. I offered it to you, it's yours, keep it."
Harold Budd
's album The White Arcades
features a track titled "Balthus Bemused by Color."
Robert Dassanowsky's book Telegrams from the Metropole: Selected Poems 1980-1998 includes a work titled "The Balthus Poem."
Christopher Hope, born 1944, wrote a novel, "My Chocolate Redeemer" around a painting by Balthus, "The Golden Days" (also 1944) which is featured on the book jacket.
Stephen Dobyns
' book The Balthus Poems (Atheneum, 1982) describes individual paintings by Balthus in 32 narrative poems.
His widow, Countess Setsuko Klossowska de Rola
, heads the Balthus Foundation established in 1998.
Rossinière
Rossinière is a municipality in the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut district of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-Geography:Rossinière has an area, , of . Of this area, or 38.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 49.6% is forested...
, Switzerland), best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
ist.
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 any attempts made to build a biographical profile. A telegram sent to the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
Gallery as it prepared for its 1968 retrospective of his works read: "NO BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS. BEGIN: BALTHUS IS A PAINTER OF WHOM NOTHING IS KNOWN. NOW LET US LOOK AT THE PICTURES. REGARDS. B."
Early life
In his formative years his art was sponsored by Rainer Maria RilkeRainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
, Maurice Denis
Maurice Denis
Maurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and education:...
,
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
and Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
. His father, Erich Klossowski
Erich Klossowski
Erich Klossowski or Kłossowski was a German and Polish-French art historian and a painter, now primarily known as the father of the writer-philosopher- painter and actor Pierre Klossowski and the artist Balthus...
, a noted art historian who wrote a monograph on Daumier
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....
, and his mother Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro (known as the painter Baladine Klossowska
Baladine Klossowska
Baladine Klossowska or Kłossowska was a twentieth-century European painter. She was the mother of the artist Balthus and the writer Pierre Klossowski, and the last lover of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.She was born Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro in Breslau, Prussia...
) were part of the cultural elite in Paris. Balthus's older brother, Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.-Life:...
, was a philosopher and writer influenced by theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and the works of the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
. Among the visitors and friends of the Klossowskis were famous writers such as André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
and Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, who found some inspiration for his novel Les Enfants Terribles
Les Enfants Terribles
Les Enfants Terribles is a 1929 novel by Jean Cocteau, published by Editions Bernard Grasset. It concerns two siblings, Elisabeth and Paul, who isolate themselves from the world as they grow up; this isolation is shattered by the stresses of their adolescence. It was first translated into English...
(1929) in his visits to the family.
In 1921 Mitsou, a book which included forty drawings by Balthus, was published. It depicted the story of a young boy and his cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
, with a preface by Balthus's mentor, Rilke. The theme of the story foreshadowed his life-long fascination with cats, which resurfaced with his self-portrait as The King of Cats (1935). In 1926 he visited Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, copying fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
s by Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
, which inspired another early ambitious work by the young painter: the tempera
Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
wall paintings of the Protestant church of the Swiss village of Beatenberg
Beatenberg
Beatenberg is a municipality in the Interlaken district of the canton of Bern in Switzerland.-History:Beatenberg is first mentioned in 1275 as super rupes. In 1281 it was mentioned as ob den fluen and in 1357 as Sant Beaten berge....
(1927). From 1930 to 1932 he lived in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, was drafted into the Moroccan infantry in Kenitra
Kenitra
Kenitra is a city in Morocco, formerly known as Port Lyautey. It is a port on the Sebou River, has a population in 2004 of 359,142 and is the capital of the Gharb-Chrarda-Béni Hssen region. During the Cold War Kenitra's U.S...
and Fes
Fes
Fes or Fez is the second largest city of Morocco, after Casablanca, with a population of approximately 1 million . It is the capital of the Fès-Boulemane region....
, worked as a secretary, and sketched his painting La Caserne (1933).
A young artist in Paris
Moving in 1933 into his first Paris studio at the Rue de Furstemberg and later another at the Cour de Rohan, Balthus showed no interest in modernist styles such as CubismCubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
. His paintings often depicted pubescent young girls in erotic and voyeuristic poses. One of the most notorious works from his first exhibition in Paris was The Guitar Lesson (1934), which caused controversy due to its sexually explicit depiction of a girl arched on her back over the lap of her female teacher, whose hands are positioned on the girl as for playing the guitar: one near her exposed crotch, another grasping her hair. Other important works from the same exhibition included La Rue (1933), La Toilette de Cathy (1933) and Alice dans le miroir (1933).
Early on his work was admired by writers and fellow painters, especially by André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. His circle of friends in Paris included the novelists Pierre Jean Jouve
Pierre Jean Jouve
Pierre Jean Jouve was a French writer, novelist and poet. No more info at the moment.-References:...
, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , officially Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint Exupéry , was a French writer, poet and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of France's highest literary awards, and in 1939 was the winner of the U.S. National Book Award...
, Joseph Breitbach, Pierre Leyris, Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...
, Michel Leiris
Michel Leiris
Julien Michel Leiris was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer.-Biography:...
and René Char
René Char
René Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
, the photographer Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, the playwright and actor Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
, and the painters André Derain
André Derain
André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
, Joan Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
and Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
(one of the most faithful of his friends). In 1948, another friend, Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, asked him to design the sets and costumes for his play L'Etat de Siège (The State of Siege
The State of Siege
The State of Siege is the fourth play by Albert Camus.Written in 1948, The State of Siege—the original sense is closer to state of emergency—is a play in three acts presenting the arrival of plague, personified by a young opportunist, in sleepy Cadiz and the subsequent creation of a...
, directed by Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist, training that served him well when he portrayed the 19th-century mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau in Marcel Carné's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis .Jean-Louis Barrault studied with Charles Dullin in whose troupe he acted...
). Balthus also designed the sets and costumes for Artaud's adaptation for Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
's The Cenci
The Cenci
The Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts is a verse drama in five acts by Percy Bysshe Shelley written in the summer of 1819, and inspired by a real Italian family, the Cencis . Shelley composed the play at Rome and at Villa Valsovano near Livorno, from May to August 5, 1819...
(1935), Ugo Betti
Ugo Betti
Ugo Betti was an Italian judge, better known as an author, who is considered by many the greatest Italian playwright next to Pirandello....
's Delitto all'isola delle capre (Crime on Goat-Island, 1953) and Barrault's adaptation of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
(1959–1960).
Champrovent to Chassy
In 1940, with the invasion of France by GermanNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
forces, Balthus fled with his wife Antoinette to Savoy
Savoy
Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....
to a farm in Champrovent
Champrovent
Champrovent is a small village located in Savoie, France on the western foot of a mountain called Mont du Chat. It is located on the territory of the commune of Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu....
near Aix-les-Bains
Aix-les-Bains
Aix-les-Bains is a commune in the Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.It is situated on the shore of Lac du Bourget, by rail north of Chambéry.-Geography:...
, where he began work on two major paintings: Landscape near Champrovent (1942–1945) and The Living Room (1942). In 1942, he escaped from Nazi France to Switzerland, first to Bern and in 1945 to Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, where he made friends with the publisher Albert Skira
Albert Skira
Albert Skira was a Swiss publisher.In 1933, he contacted André Breton about a new journal, which he planned to be the most luxurious art and literary review the Surrealists had seen, featuring a slick format with many color illustrations. Skira's restriction was that Breton was not allowed to use...
as well as the writer and member of the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
, André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
. Balthus returned to France in 1946 and a year later traveled with André Masson
André Masson
André-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...
to Southern France
Southern France
Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy...
, meeting figures such as Picasso and Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
, who eventually became a collector of his work. With Adolphe Mouron Cassandre
Adolphe Mouron Cassandre
Adolphe Mouron Cassandre was a Ukrainian-French painter, commercial poster artist, and typeface designer.-Early Life and Career:...
in 1950, Balthus designed stage decor for a production of Mozart's opera Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
in Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
. Three years later he moved into the Chateau de Chassy in the Morvan
Morvan
The Morvan is a mountainous massif lying just to the west of the Côte d'Or escarpment in Burgundy, France. It is a northerly extension of the Massif Central and is of Variscan age. It is composed of granites and basalts and formed a promontory extending northwards into the Jurassic sea.-Music:The...
, living with his niece Frédérique Tison and finishing his large-scale masterpieces La Chambre (The Room 1952, possibly influenced by Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.-Life:...
's novels) and Le Passage du Commerce Saint-André (1954).
Later life and work
As international fame grew with exhibitions in the gallery of Pierre MatissePierre Matisse
Pierre Matisse was an art dealer active in New York City. He was the youngest child of French painter Henri Matisse.-Background and early years:...
(1938) and the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(1956) in New York City, he cultivated the image of himself as an enigma. In 1964, he moved to Rome where he presided over the Villa de Medici as director (appointed by the French Minister of Culture
Minister of Culture (France)
The Minister of Culture is, in the Government of France, the cabinet member in charge of national museums and monuments; promoting and protecting the arts in France and abroad; and managing the national archives and regional "maisons de culture"...
André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
) of the French Academy in Rome
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...
, and made friends with the filmmaker Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
and the painter Renato Guttuso
Renato Guttuso
Renato Guttuso was an Italian painter.His best-known paintings include Flight from Etna , Crucifixion and La Vucciria . Guttuso also designed for the theatre and did illustrations for books...
.
In 1977 he moved to Rossinière
Rossinière
Rossinière is a municipality in the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut district of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-Geography:Rossinière has an area, , of . Of this area, or 38.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 49.6% is forested...
, Switzerland. That he had a second, Japanese wife Setsuko Ideta whom he married in 1967 and was thirty-five years his junior, simply added to the air of mystery around him (he met her in Japan, during a diplomatic mission also initiated by Malraux). A son, Fumio, was born in 1968 but died two years later.
The photographers and friends Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
and Martine Franck
Martine Franck
Martine Franck is a Belgian photographer, and a member of the Magnum Photos agency. She was the second wife of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson after his divorce from Ratna Mohini, and is president and co-founder of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, which administrates his estate.- Biography...
(Cartier-Bresson's wife), both portrayed the painter and his wife and their daughter Harumi (born 1973) in his Grand Chalet
Grand Chalet
The Grand Chalet of Rossinière is one of the oldest chalets in Switzerland, dating to the 18th century. It is located in Rossinière and classed as a historic monument. Claude Roy wrote of it:-History:...
in Rossinière in 1999.
Balthus was one of the few living artists to be represented in the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, when his painting The Children (1937) was acquired from the private collection of Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
.
Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
s and rock stars alike attended the funeral of Balthus. Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
, lead-singer of U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
, sang for the hundreds of mourners at the funeral, including the President of France, the Prince Sadruddhin Aga Khan
Prince Sadruddhin Aga Khan
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, KBE, KCSS served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1966 to 1978, during which he reoriented the agency's focus beyond Europe and prepared it for an explosion of complex refugee issues. He was also a proponent of greater collaboration between...
, supermodel
Supermodel
The term supermodel refers to a highly-paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in haute couture and commercial modeling. The term became prominent in the popular culture of the 1980s. Supermodels usually work for top fashion designers and labels...
Elle McPherson, and Cartier-Bresson.
Style and themes
Balthus's style is primarily classical. His work shows numerous influences, including the writings of Emily BrontëEmily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
, the writings and photography of Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, and the paintings of Masaccio, Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
, Simone Martini
Simone Martini
Simone Martini was an Italian painter born in Siena.He was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and greatly influenced the development of the International Gothic style....
, Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
, Jean Etienne Liotard, Joseph Reinhardt, Géricault
Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings...
, Ingres
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...
, Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
, Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Félix Vallotton
Félix Vallotton
Félix Edouard Vallotton was a Swiss painter and printmaker associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut.-Life and work:...
and Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
. Although his technique and compositions were inspired by pre-renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
painters, there also are eerie intimations of contemporary surrealists like de Chirico. Painting the figure at a time when figurative art was largely ignored, he is widely recognised as an important 20th century artist.
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.
Ancestral debates
Balthus's father, Erich, was born to a noble Polish family (szlachtaSzlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
) of the Rola coat of arms, that lived in Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
. This was evidently the reason for his son Balthus, to add, later, "de Rola" to his family name Klossowski
Klossowski
Klossowski is a surname, and may refer to:* Balthazar Klossowski de Rola, the French painter Balthus*Erich Klossowski*Pierre Klossowski...
, which was in szlachta tradition (if he had lived in Poland, the arrangement of his last name would have been Rola-Kłossowski or Kłossowski h. Rola.) The artist was very conscious of his Polish ancestry and the Rola
Rola
Rola may refer to:* Rola, an Australian manufacturer of loudspeakers, tape, and transformers*British Rola Company, former loudspeaker manufacturer* Rola coat of arms* Stanisław Rola, Polish race walker...
arms was embroidered onto many of his kimono, in the style of Japanese kamon
Kamon
Kamon may refer to:*Kamon , a Japanese heraldic symbol*Kamon, Israel, a village in northern Israel-See also:*Kimon, an Athenian politician and general...
.
According to most biographies, Balthus denied having any ethnic Jewish heritage, claiming that biographers had confused his mother's true ancestry. In Balthus: A Biography, Nicholas Fox Weber, who is Jewish, attempts to find common ground while interviewing the painter by bringing up a biographical note stating that his mother was Jewish. Balthus replied, "No, sir, that is incorrect," and explained: "One of my father's best friends was a painter called Eugen Spiro, who was the son of a cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
. My mother was also called Spiro, but came apparently from a Protestant family in the south of France. One of the Midi Spiros - one of the ancestors - went to Russia. They were likely of Greek origin. We called Eugen Spiro "Uncle" because of the close relationship, but he was not my real uncle. The Protestant Spiros are still in the south of France."
Balthus continued by saying he did not think it was tasteful to forcefully correct these errors, given his many Jewish friends. Nicholas Fox Weber concludes in his biography that Balthus was lying about this "biographical error," though the exact reasoning behind this was never explained. Weber states that the name "Spiro" is only a Greek given name, though this is incorrect, as the personal name serves equally as a surname. Balthus consistently repeated that if he, in fact, was Jewish, he would have no problem with it. In support of Weber's view, Balthus did make dubious claims about his ancestry before, once claiming he was descended from Lord Byron on his father's side.
According to Weber, Balthus would frequently add to the story of his mother's ancestry, saying that she was also related to the Romanov
Romanov
The House of Romanov was the second and last imperial dynasty to rule over Russia, reigning from 1613 until the February Revolution abolished the crown in 1917...
, Narischkin, and lesser known Raginet families among others, though conceding Balthus never claimed his mother's side was from a straight unmixed lineage. Despite the sensationalism with which Weber says he told these stories and the method in which Weber presents Balthus's claims, Balthus never saw himself as contradictory. The true extent of what Balthus was saying for artistic effect and what he was saying in earnest is unknown as he did not stick seriously to all his claims. Weber never interviewed Pierre Klossowski, the painter's brother, in order to confirm or deny their mother's ancestry. Weber did, however, present a quote by Baladine's lover, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
, in which Rilke states that the Spiros were descended from one of the richest Sephardic-Spanish families. In a seemingly conclusionary note, Weber writes: "The artist neglected, however, to tell me that, in the most miserable of ironies, Fumio (Balthus's son) suffered from Tay-Sachs disease." Weber holds this up as evidence that Balthus was lying about not having Jewish ancestry, given Tay-Sachs is a heavily Ashkenazic-Jewish disease. This, of course, conflicts with Rilke's report of the Spiros being Sephardic, which Weber later says was a "Rilke embellishment" and also brings up the relevance of the preponderance of Japanese infantile Tay-Sachs, since Balthus's wife was Japanese.
Influence and legacy
His work has strongly influenced several contemporary artists; among them Jan SaudekJan Saudek
Jan Saudek is a Czech art photographer.- Life :Saudek's father was a Jew and the family was therefore persecuted by Germans. Many of his family members died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II. Jan and his brother Karel were held in a children's concentration camp located...
, Will Barnet
Will Barnet
Will Barnet is an American artist known for his paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints depicting the human figure and animals, both in casual scenes of daily life and in transcendent dreamlike worlds.-Biography:...
, Duane Michals
Duane Michals
Duane Michals is an American photographer. Michals' work makes innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy.-Education and career:...
, John Currin
John Currin
John Currin is an American painter. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and...
, Eli Levin, Emile Chambon, Fred Bandekow and Elena Zolotnitsky.
He has also influenced the filmmaker Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....
of the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
. His film Hurlevent
Hurlevent
Hurlevent is an adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Based on the first part of the novel and set in 1930s southern France, it starred three unknown actors: Fabienne Babe as Catherine, Lucas Belvaux as Roch , and Oliver Cruveiller as Catherine's brother William...
(1985) was inspired by Balthus's drawings made at the beginning of the 1930s. As he says in an interview with Valerie Hazette: "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 (...)".
A reproduction of Balthus's Girl at a Window (a painting from 1957) prominently appeared in François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's film Domicile Conjugal (Bed & Board, 1970). The two principal characters, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud
Jean-Pierre Léaud
-Early years:Born in Paris, Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in The 400 Blows....
) and his wife Christine (Claude Jade
Claude Jade
Claude Marcelle Jorré, better known as Claude Jade , was a French actress, known for starring as Christine in François Truffaut's three films Stolen Kisses , Bed and Board and Love on the Run . Jade acted in theatre, film and television...
), are arguing. Christine takes down from the wall a small drawing of approximately 25 x 25 cm and gives it to her husband: Christine: "Here, take the small Balthus." Antoine: "Ah, the small Balthus. I offered it to you, it's yours, keep it."
Harold Budd
Harold Budd
Harold Budd is an American ambient/avant-garde composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires....
's album The White Arcades
The White Arcades
The White Arcades is an album performed by Harold Budd. The album was recorded at various locations, including the Palladium in Edinburgh and the Cocteau Twins Studio in London, and individual tracks were engineered by the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie and by Brian Eno, the latter also adding his...
features a track titled "Balthus Bemused by Color."
Robert Dassanowsky's book Telegrams from the Metropole: Selected Poems 1980-1998 includes a work titled "The Balthus Poem."
Christopher Hope, born 1944, wrote a novel, "My Chocolate Redeemer" around a painting by Balthus, "The Golden Days" (also 1944) which is featured on the book jacket.
Stephen Dobyns
Stephen Dobyns
Stephen J. Dobyns is an American poet and novelist born in Orange, New Jersey, and residing in Westerly, RI.-Life:Was born on February 19, 1941 in Orange, New Jersey to Lester L., a minister, and Barbara Johnston...
' book The Balthus Poems (Atheneum, 1982) describes individual paintings by Balthus in 32 narrative poems.
His widow, Countess Setsuko Klossowska de Rola
Setsuko Klossowska de Rola
Setsuko Klossowski de Rola is a Japanese painter. She has been in charge of the Villa Medici in Rome, has exhibited her work internationally, and is also a writer. She became UNESCO's Artist For Peace in 2005. She is the widow of the French painter, Balthus, and is honorary president of the...
, heads the Balthus Foundation established in 1998.
Films on Balthus
- Damian PettigrewDamian PettigrewDamian Pettigrew is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, author, and multimedia artist, best known for his cinematic portraits of Balthus and Federico Fellini...
, Balthus Through the Looking GlassBalthus Through the Looking GlassBalthus Through the Looking-Glass is a 1996 French documentary film directed by Damian Pettigrew on the French painter Balthus filmed at work in his studio....
(72', Super 16, 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.