Balthus: Cats and Girls
by Sabine Rewald
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"Balthus's lifelong curiosity with the ambiguities and dark side of childhood resulted in his best-known and most iconic works. In these pictures, Balthus (1908-2001) mingles intuition into his young sitters' psyches with overt erotic desire and forbidding austerity, making them among the most powerful depictions of childhood and adolescence ever committed to canvas. Often included in these scenes are enigmatic cats, possible stand-ins for the artist himself. Balthus: Cats and Girls is the show more first book devoted to this subject, focusing on the early decades of the artist's career from the mid-1930s to the 1950s. Drawing on extensive knowledge of the artist's life and work, as well as on interviews with Balthus and the models themselves, Sabine Rewald explores the origins and permutations of Balthus's obsessions with adolescents and felines. She addresses the crucial influence of such key figures as poet Rainer Maria Rilke, his mother's lover, who acted as Balthus's surrogate father, but also includes the previously unknown voices of the girl models: their recollections and comments provide a unique perspective on some of the best known and most controversial paintings of the 20th century."--Publisher's description. show lessTags
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Balthus’ depictions of girls were controversial in his time as well as today. He was fascinated with pubescent girls whose sexually was latent while also apparent. He did not choose to show them in childish or frilly attire. Rather, these girls were self-possessed and even bored. The images and the positions of their bodies are disconcerting and (to some) quite offensive. Meanwhile, Balthus himself claimed that he never intended eroticism and those who saw any in his paintings must be lewd. These sulky, self-absorbed girls are experiencing the first twinges of womanhood, and Balthus captures that feeling as well as the viewers’ unintentionally voyeuristic yet provocative gaze. These images are supposed to make you feel uncomfortable show more and ambiguous as you observe those who are no longer girls and not yet women. show less
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