Balthus, 1908-2001

By Romana Bardetti

The Salon II, 1942, oil on canvas

How do artists choose their subjects, and can we hold them accountable for their crude or unsavoury choices? In the case of Polish-French artist Balthus, his controversy often precedes his art, as his erotically charged depictions of young girls stir an unnerving feeling in any viewer, emphasising this question of subject matter and taste. 

Balthus, born Balthasar Klossowski, rose to prominence at the age of 13 in Paris during a period of rich artistic experimentation, with Cubism on the out and Surrealism and Art Deco styles coming into fashion. Despite having access to a plethora of artistic outlets, Balthus opted for controversy in a different way, depicting sadistic, sexually explicit images of pubescent girls. As a result, his pieces are often extremely uncomfortable and even predatory in nature. 

An apparently innocent painting with more beneath the surface is The Salon II (1942), in which Balthus depicts two children relaxing and reading. While the piece seems to present a harmless scene of young girls at their leisure, with the context of Balthus’ frequent subject matter it is obvious that his obsession with young girls is, at best, morally ambiguous. The tilted head of the seated child could be a reference to Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, a statue that was deemed too sexually explicit for its time, but one that Balthus would have encountered when living in Rome throughout the 1960s and 70s. Additionally, the delicate drapery in the middle-ground could represent the precariousness of the artist’s own position, with an unkempt tablecloth mirroring his oft-criticised immoral and uncontained behaviour. 

Thérèse Dreaming, 1938, oil on canvas, MET Museum

Continuing this comparison to Bernini’s Baroque masterpiece, Balthus makes another possible reference in one of his most technically impressive artworks, Thérèse Dreaming (1938). Here, the voyeuristic nature of the scene is palpable, as if the viewer has, unbeknownst to the subject, stepped into the room to observe the young girl. Again, there is immense discomfort from the audience, encouraging twenty-first-century museum-goers to dispute the painting’s presence in the Met collection, confirming that this is a collective dilemma. Despite this controversy, Balthus remained steadfast in his chosen subject matter and continues to be posthumously supported by his second wife, with whom he began a romance at the age of 54, while she was 20.

While I do not go as far as accusing Balthus of any real crime, his paintings do hint at a problematic theme that artists choose to engage with – young girls. While many of the artists’ contemporaries, most notably Picasso, can be witnessed depicting the same subject matter, this is not a new phenomenon. Some Renaissance artists engaged in questionable pederastic relationships with young boys. All this goes to say that Balthus, while not alone in his dubious subject choice, has often perpetuated a harmful narrative that men in positions of power can exploit young women and girls in a myriad of ways through his art. Balthus’ artistic life was arguably more one of exploitation than opportunism.

Bibliography

“Balthus. Part 3 – Antoinette de Watteville and exile.”  My daily art display. Last modified February 3, 2016. https://mydailyartdisplay.uk/2016/02/03/balthus-part-3-antoinette-de-watteville-and-exile/. 

Buck, Louisa. “Balthus.” The Guardian. 2001. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/feb/19/guardianobituaries2. 

Clinch, Lucian. “Balthus’ masterpiece is creepy. But should it be removed by the Met?” Varsity. 2018. https://www.varsity.co.uk/arts/14399. 

Muñoz-Alonso, Lorena. “What Does Balthus’s Widow Think of His Controversial Oeuvre?” artnet. 2015. https://news.artnet.com/market/balthus-widow-controversial-oeuvre-308134.