Monday, September 30, 2013
Is Balthus the "Crazy Cat Lady" of Modern Art?
When London’s Tate Gallery asked the French painter Balthus
for some personal details to include in a 1968 retrospective
exhibition, Balthus replied via telegram: “No biographical details.
Begin: Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. Now let us look at
the pictures. Regards. B.” But how do you look at an exhibition such as
the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balthus: Cats and Girls—Paintings and Provocations
and not ask who this man and artist was? Cats may slink around the
paintings, but the real provocation in the show’s title comes from
Balthus’ long-controversial portraits of young, pre-teen girls, who pose
with a mixture of feline grace and tweenage awkwardness that results
in, if not child pornography, at least erotic unease for the viewer.
Often cats appear as the only on-canvas observers of these
models—wide-eyed voyeurs that might serve as stand-ins for the artist
himself, whose life-long fascination with cats remains the one personal
detail he freely shared. Is Bathus modern art’s “crazy cat lady”—the
eccentric whose harmless obsessions taken to the extreme reveal a
darker, psychological truth? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Balthus the 'Crazy Cat Lady' of Modern Art?"
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