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Balthus

Balthasar Klossowski de Rola Balthus, 1908-2001: The King of Cats (Taschen Basic Art)

Taschen

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Price: $9.99

Description

FRENCH-GERMAN PAINTER COUNT BALTHASAR KLOSSOWSKI DE ROLA (1908-2001), KNOWN AS BALTHUS, SHOCKED THE PARISIAN ART WORLD IN 1934 WITH HIS DREAMY, SENSUAL, NEO-CLASSICAL PORTRAITS OF NYMPHETS AT A TIME WHEN SURREALISM AND ABSTRACTION WERE DE RIGUEUR. AS A PROVOCATEUR, BALTHUS WAS OFTEN SCORNED; AS AN ARTIST, HE WAS WIDELY EMBRACED AS A PRODIGY. IN RESPONSE TO CRITICS OF HIS REALIST STYLE, BALTHUS SAID: "THE REAL ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE. ONE CAN BE A REALIST OF THE UNREAL AND A FIGURATIVE PAINTER OF THE INVISIBLE." HIS EROTIC, POETIC PAINTINGS LIVE ON AS EXAMPLES OF THE BEST FIGURATIVE WORK OF THE MODERN ERA.

Customer Reviews

Good reproduction of the paintings, unsatisfying text
TASCHEN's "Basic Art" series consists of fairly inexpensive, full-colour introductions to dozens of painters running just under 100 pages each. This instalment by Gilles Neret presents Balthus, whose oeuvre is for paintings what Nabokov's novel LOLITA was for literature: the sexuality of the adolescente. Neret gets Balthus' infamous painting "The Guitar Lesson" out of the way quickly, as this alone among the painter's works was meant to shock. In the main, Balthus' paintings are not shocking because the artist meant them so, but rather because his perennial concerns strike some viewers as inappropriate. In his text, Neret sometimes quotes from those prominent figures who were willing to take a stand for Balthus, such as Rene Char, Richard Gere and Antoin Artaud.

The works are generally presented in fine colour, with only a handful of paintings like "The Room" in less than ideal reproduction. I only wish that Neret had presented them in chronological order instead of jumbling them all up. This would have allowed the reader to see straightaway Balthus' stylistic evolution, which is pretty interesting (always figurative, but less and less intense and ever more stylized). At least the classic paintings that Balthus alludes to, such as the "Villeneuve-les-Avignons Pieta" for "The Guitar Lesson", are often presented alongside.

While the paintings are fine, what really weakens this book is Neret's writing style, which is rambling and vacuous. Then there are strange assertions, such as that the classic painting "Gabrielle d'Estrees et une de ses soeurs" is a celebration of lesbianism (which historians would scoff at), or that "The Game of Cards" is Balthus' most disturbing painting (why?). The coverage of each period of Balthus' life is also inconsistent. For most of the book Neret leaves biography aside, respecting Balthus' wish that people simply "look at the paintings". But from the 1960s, Neret becomes all too passionate about how Balthus' travels and second marriage are reflected in his paintings.

The "Basic Art" series is a great way to inexpensively familiarize yourself with the major figures of painting, but this instalment could have been a lot better.
Balthus: Time Suspended

Schirmer/Mosel

List Price: $79.95
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Description

Balthus (1908-2001) is one of the truly enigmatic personalities among the painters of the 20th century. Born Balthazar Klossowski de Rola, he grew up in Berlin, Switzerland and Paris, and later moved back and forth between France, the Far East and Rome. Continually crossing all sorts of borders, he remained an outsider throughout his life. His art was a sensuous and poetical admixture of fairytale, Eros and dreams; it was figurative in an age of abstraction and painted using the techniques of Italian Quattrocento fresco - in other words, at no point did it fit any customary category.

This extraordinary illustrated volume is devoted to the early masterpieces and is published on the occasion of Balthus' centenary in February 2008. Sabine Rewald is the author of books on, among others, Caspar David Friedrich, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, and Balthus.


Customer Reviews

greatbook
Balthus has been one of my favourites ever since I first discovered him many years ago, hes a realist who manages to transmit a mood that is absolutely fascinating.I havent finished it yet, but am enjoying every page.
Balthus: A Biography

Knopf

List Price: $40.00

Description

The first full-scale biography of one of the most elusive and enigmatic painters of our time -- the self-proclaimed Count Balthus Klossowski de Rola -- whose brilliantly rendered, markedly sexualized portraits, especially of young girls, are among the most memorable images in contemporary art.

The story of Balthus's life has been shrouded by contradiction and hearsay, most of it his own invention; over the years he created for himself a persona of mystery, aristocracy, and glamour. Now, in Nicholas Fox Weber's superb biography, Balthus, the man and the artist, stands revealed as never before.

He was born in Paris in 1908 to Polish parents. At age twelve he first stepped into the spotlight with the publication of forty of his drawings illustrating a story about a cat by Rainer Maria Rilke, who was then Balthus's mother's lover and a crucial influence on the young boy. From that moment, Balthus has never been out of the public eye.

In 1934 his first exhibition, in Paris, stunned the art world. The seven canvases drew attention to his extraordinary technique -- a mix of tradition and imagination informed by the work of Piero della Francesca, Courbet, and Joseph Reinhardt, but unique to the twenty-six-year-old artist -- and to their provocative content; one of the paintings, The Guitar Lesson, was so powerful in its sadomasochistic imagery that it was deemed necessary to remove it from public display.
Continuously since then, Balthus's work has provoked both great opprobrium and profound admiration -- as has the artist himself, whether collaborating with Antonin Artaud on his Theater of Cruelty, transforming the Villa Medici into the social center of Fellini's Rome in the 1950s, or competing for the artistic limelight with his friends Picasso and André Derain.

The artist's complexities are clarified and his genius understood in a book that derives its particular immediacy from Weber's long and intense conversations with Balthus -- who never previously consented to discuss his life and work with a biographer -- as well as his interviews with the painter's closest friends, members of his family, and many of the subjects of his controversial canvases.

Weber's critical and human grasp (he acutely analyzes the paintings in terms of both their aesthetic achievement and what they reveal of their maker's psyche), combined with his rich knowledge of Balthus's life and his insight into the ideas and forces that have helped to shape Balthus's work over the past seven decades, gives us a striking, illuminating portrait of one of the most admired and outrageous artists of our time.
Balthus is as multifaceted and spellbinding as its subject, the 20th-century painter whose canvasses have been likened both to those of the ethereal Piero della Francesca and sadomasochistic erotica. Biographer Nicholas Fox Weber quotes Oscar Wilde when discussing Balthus's most notorious painting, in which a music teacher violently molests her young pupil: "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.... And so Balthus claimed to me time and again. If viewers find The Guitar Lesson ... shocking or titillating, repulsive or seductive, they reveal only their own psyches, not his." Balthus repeatedly insisted on noninterpretive, pre-Freudian, stylistic observation of his paintings--mere studies in light and shadow, form and shape, composition and color--or so he would have Weber (and the reader) believe.

Weber describes his own psychological near-seduction by Balthus's proffered confidences, and his brief, initial inclination to allow the artist to dominate their interviews. Despite Balthus's gift for prevarication--romance on short notice is his specialty--Weber is astute enough to sift through every possible document. He elucidates Balthus's mother's long affair with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke; her Jewish ancestry, which Balthus denied; the atmosphere of religious mockery among the surrealists; Balthus's marriages and affairs and his obsession with pubescent girls. As the book progresses, Weber delves deeply into an analysis of the artist's psyche. In the end, he achieves remarkable, sensitive insights into the nature of Balthus's character and subjects. He patiently builds a case for the theory that even the artist's female adolescent models reflect his secret selves and fantasies, developed in reaction to many kinds of childhood pain and confusion.

Weber secures every important painting within a framework of historical reference, personal psychology, and stylistic influence. With this he demonstrates his uniqueness among biographers of artists--he actually understands painting, including its technical aspects. A hugely pleasurable read, this book compares to Hilary Spurling's The Unknown Matisse in its erudition and richness of detail. --Peggy Moorman


Customer Reviews

Vile
if there is one consistant theme in this ponderous book it's the author's unrelenting obsession with exposing Balthus' alleged Jewishness. With access to so many of the great man's intimates as well as being a guest in the artist's home each page is full of missed opportunites to shed real insight into his personality. A life such as Balthus deserved better than this dishonorable treatment by a bottom feeding journalist.
Ultimate bio on a lucky genius
Success in art ? Not an easy road...In this excellent bio you'll find out how a little nasty detail on the lower left corner of a canvas painted when the artist was only 25 years old, made Balthus into a genius . The book is excellent and Weber completes admirably the Balthus puzzle. Well worth the price to discover the secret in selling your art to the rich and stupid !
The Weber Case
This book has disappointed me greatly.To all the negative reviews displayed here I can only add more... Its apparently well researched subject is just a cover-up for making yet another buck, using an artist who is lesser known, often misunderstood and provocative. Any biography of Balthus would have been appreciated at the time of the artist's old age and the obviously quick aproach of death, and people like Mr. Weber, unfortunately, quite often are the first to write in such moments. This is not a book about Balthus or his life or his art, it is about quickly making a name for himself and some money off Balthus, in the name of his art, when it was still possible. Inaccessability of Balthus the person has allowed only a small circle of friends, family members, and patrons to benefit financially, and socially from Balthus's name and Art, however Mr.Weber, a parvenue as he is, craved for some of it too. The result - is this book, a book about infiltrating oneself ( or trying to) into a privileged society of artists, aristocrats, wealthy collectors, celebs etc. and then - just " telling all" about who they really are: pretenders, liers, perverts and above all - anti-Semites... I only regret three thing about this book: That I have spent money to buy it ( so contributing to the cause of Mr.Weber); that I have read this book ; that we have all here read this book. PS: To my knowledge, there is not a single Novgorod near Pinsk, or anywhere in Belarus, and Mr.Weber was probably alluding to Novogrudok ( Nowogrodek, Navahrudak) about 125km from Minsk. (Weber might have thought that throwing in some obscure town names from Eastern Europe and ambelishing that book with them would make his "research" look more professional)
Capturing Balthus
This is a superb biography in which the author willingly submits to a cat and mouse game with the husband and wife team of Balthus and Setusko, both of whom seem supremely confident that they can seduce and manipulate the biographer into telling only the tale they feel the world deserves. Like a good psychoanalyst, Weber allows himself to be taken in and then slowly works his way back out, transformed, but intact. There are so many layers to this story that it makes sense for Weber to include his own narrative as a way to contain and to bind. Balthus comes across as a wonderful paradox as Weber experiences him as both tender and sadistic, real and unreal. Perhaps Weber's own propensity for sharing unflattering details of many of the people he meets along the way (a woman fondling her breast during an interview; the outrageously tasteless home of a California collector, are examples) is a natural response to the sadism that Balthus, himself, disowns time and time again. Weber engages in many acts of bravado during the writing of this book and toward the end describes an amazing meeting between Balthus and the author's own two young daughters -- they seem to have been raised with a hearty, self-assurance. At no time does one feel that the author's intrusions are gratuitous. He does a wonderful job of illuminating aspects of Balthus' life, thought,and art, and his psychoanalytic riffs on the paintings ring true and are expressed in a down-to-earth manner. Of course, how could one ever get to the heart of the matter when it comes to Balthus? But in the end, Balthus, the trickster, gets respectfully what he deserves. Certainly it might make him wince, but then for the artist who early on loved to shock, turnabout is fair play. Bravo to Nicholas Fox Weber who allows himself to feel toward his subject a complex set of emotions that when examined helps to capture some truths about this complicated artist.
Decadence! Oh my!
The story told in this book is not an original one. In fact, it is, in outline, the same story that provided Henry James with his best plots: a prim New Englander, in Europe for a noble cause, is attracted to, but finally repelled by, those decadent Europeans. Nicholas Fox Weber writes his own story, but he shows us how accurately James observed the appeal and the repulsion that a certain kind of European had -- and still has -- for a certain kind of American.

If Lambert Strether, from "The Ambassadors", or the heroine of "The Portrait of a Lady", had written about their own experiences among the rich and sophisticated old-money types from the continent, their stories would have had many similarities to Weber's. At first he is charmed and approving of the old-world manners with which he is received. Balthus is charming. He answers the phone himself! Just slightly distracted, as older people can be, Balthus regales Weber with anecdotes of the famous and infamous celebrities that he has known, and Weber feels blessed. The great artist has deigned to confide in him. He is in the presence not only of great talent, but of great taste as well, and if such a hero includes him at the dinner table, it must be a kind of validation.

It is later that he feels seduced and misled. Balthus has lied! Balthus has invented stories about himself, to seem more romantic and more mysterious! The sophistication of the great houses holds dark secrets... there is a hint of non-noble blood... there is a hint of anti-semitism.... there is a hint that even the lady of the house can commit a faux pas with the queen of Spain! There were parties in Rome which lasted all night, at which seductions may have occurred! Weber is shocked. It may be the world of the great artists, but it is definitely not the world of which a good American would approve.

There is one major difference, though, between this book and the one Lambert Strether would have written. If James' hero had been invited into the home of one of the world's wealthiest men, to see a masterpiece which few people have had a chance to see in the last 50 years, he would have shown gratitude to the man who allowed him into his bedroom. Lambert Strether, if he had seen a box of hemorrhoid medicine on the night table, would have turned his eyes away with discretion, and made no mention of it to anyone. Yet this is the detail that Weber uses as the climax of the scene, and it is not the only lurid one that seems to hold a fascination for him. When you finish reading this book, what stays in your mind is not a new understanding of Balthus' background, and still less a new look at Balthus' art. What you remember is the roll of flab around Claus von Bulow's middle, or the lovely interviewee who fondles herself.

This is not a book about Balthus. It is about Weber and his disapproval. He should have named it "Lifestyles of the Rich and Slimy". It sure was fun to read.


Painter's House: Balthus at the Grand Chalet

Te Neues Publishing Company

List Price: $25.00

Description


Vanished Splendors: A Memoir



List Price: $29.95

Description

The painter Balthus, whose tenacity and cultivated taste for secrecy have enveloped him in an aura of forbidding mystery, wrote this memoir at the end of his long life.A man who for decades opted to "give expression to the world" rather than to "express" himself speaks for the first and only time about his life, family, work, his theory of art and how it intersects with history, literature, and spirituality.

Balthus was born Balthasar Klossowski in 1908 to Polish art historian Erich Klossowski and his wife, the painter Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro. The family lived in Germany, France, and Switzerland. In this memoir Balthus describes his childhood with his mother and her lover -- the poet Rainer Maria Rilke -- who became Balthus's own spiritual mentor. He evokes la vie de boheme in Paris during the 1920s, his friendships with Picasso, Derain, Artaud, Giacometti, Saint-Exupéry, René Char, Pierre Jean Jouve, and Albert Camus. He discusses his paintings, offers glimpses into his marriage, and expresses his passion for Chinese art and the Swiss chalets and Italian villas that he helped to restore. He recalls touching moments with his beloved daughter Harumi and the inspiration he drew from his cats. Also, in a kind of final lesson, Balthus shares his thoughts about painting and creation, denounces contemporary art as being illusory and deceitful, and talks candidly about his Catholic faith and how it inspired his work.

"We are most charmed by the memoir's ease of expression, as if Balthus were confiding in us, as individuals," writes Joyce Carol Oates in her introduction to Vanished Splendors. "We are brought into a startling intimacy with genius."


Customer Reviews

A must read for thinkers of art
This Blathus memoir is absolutely beautiful. You feel as if Balthus is sitting right beside you sharing his most personal reflections. He shares not only about his approach to painting but also about many areas he considers to be blessings and difficulties for his life. An intimate and inspiring read. For any young artist or book collector of art this is a must have.
The great Balthus in his own words
When it comes to twentieth century painters, Balthus is one of the most important and certainly one that stands out from the rest. He is enigmatic and people often misunderstand his paintings. Vanished Splendors is Balthus' memoirs that he was working on at the time of his death. In it he puts forth his philosophy on many subjects such as art, modern art, life, religion, family, love and history. He's known or met most of the important artisians of the last century. Picasso, Camus, Artaud, Monet and more. This is a quick read and gives insight into his world and how he painted (he often took years to finish one canvas). Very enjoyable and informative.
Balthus

Harry N. Abrams

List Price: $29.95

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.


Customer Reviews

Somewhat dissapointing
First thing, when I bought the book the edition was said to be, on the Amazon[.com] web site, Hardcover when it really was Paperback. Secondly, it was promoted elsewhere as "catalogue raisonné" when it does NOT include any comments on the paintings. Just as well the paintings are worth it by themselves...
Balthus
A wonderful book, considering how little is really known about the great artist, although I wish more personal information had been forthcoming. Some personal photos of Balthus at work are also included.

Authored by his son, this book attempts to dispel some of the mystery with a few photos and facts about the great man himself, yet leaves us yearning for more. However the prints of Balthus' most famous works (pubescent girls) manage to maintain the barely restrained sensuality and dreamlike quality of the original paintings - a quality usually lost in textbook prints. Here they are reproduced faithfully, and take your breath away with their sheer eroticism.


Balthus News




Joods Historisch Museum
"Giacometti, Balthus, Skira -- The Labyrinthe Years (1944-1946)" presents art and documents of "Labyrinthe," a publication published at the end of World War II. "Connections" exhibits 100 different types of textiles exploring the "connection" between

South Bay Events and Lectures
South Bay Events and Lectures Picasso and the cubists, Balthus, Bosch, Bocklin, Beckmann and many more can be seen in various pieces. The overriding sense of the work is a fun loving and optimistic approach to making art and experiencing the world around us.

Inside Maine - Down East
Inside MaineHis elegantly crafted paintings have been compared to the work of such European masters as Poussin, de Chirico, and Balthus. This exhibition will consist of a selection of oils and watercolors created by the artist during the past three decades.

'Built of Books,' by Thomas Wright - San Francisco Chronicle
'Built of Books,' by Thomas Wright to homophobia whose bon mots were interrupted by a jail sentence. Benjamin Ivry is author of biographies of Rimbaud, Ravel and Poulenc and translator from the French of authors such as Gide, Verne and Balthus. E-mail him at books@sfchronicle.com.

Sammlung Pietzsch ab Mitte Juni in Neuer Nationalgalerie zu sehen - News Adhoc
Sammlung Pietzsch ab Mitte Juni in Neuer Nationalgalerie zu sehen - News Adhoc NetplosivSammlung Pietzsch ab Mitte Juni in Neuer Nationalgalerie zu sehenDie Sammlung Pietzsch zählt zu den herausragenden internationalen Privatsammlungen der Klassischen Moderne und umfasst Gemälde von Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Balthus, Hans Bellmer oder Paul Delvaux sowie Werke von Jackson Pollock, Marc Rothko und Willhelm Sammlung Pietzsch in Neuer Nationalgalerie

B Directory

Balthus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Balthus's older brother, Pierre Klossowski, was a ... Balthus also designed the sets and costumes for Artaud's ... Balthus's style is ...

Balthus: Biography from Answers.com
Balthus , Artist Born: 29 February 1908 Birthplace: Paris, France Died: 19 February 2001 Best Known As: 20th century French painter of The Guitar

Balthus - Artchive
Profile and images for the French painter who was born Balthazar Klossowski de Rola.

Balthus - Artcyclopedia
Directory of Balthus images and resources online.

Balthus
But above all, Balthus was known for paintings of equivocal figure subjects, ... From his school days onward, Balthus was drawn to the apple-green uplands of the ...