Word: balthus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...never been known for its tolerance of individualism. Of all the French artists sent there, only David and Ingres stand out as painters of the first rank. Malraux's plan is to give the Villa a new vitality. "This is what I propose," he told his friend Balthus. "A second ambassador in Italy. An ambassador of French culture. I would have conferences, receptions, movement!" Balthus was delighted to accept...
Distinguished Descent. Balthus was born Balthasar Klossowski de Rola in Paris on Feb. 29, 1908. Klossowski is a name that goes back for centuries in the Polish nobility, but he is also descended from the Gordons of Scotland, the most notable of whom was Lord Byron. His father was a noted critic whose house was always full of artists, writers, musicians, poets, psychologists and philosophers. For young Balthasar, the talk in the salon was an education in itself...
...mystical German poet Rainer Maria Rilke who started him on his career. One day when he was eleven, Balthus showed the poet some drawings he had made of a pet cat that had suddenly disappeared. The poet was so enchanted that he wrote a little text to accompany the drawings, and in time they were published in a little book. Artist friends of the family-Bonnard, Derain, Vuillard-encouraged the boy and even gave him lessons. By the time he was 28, Balthus was an established painter in his own right...
Unnerving Mood. Despite such distinguished tutelage. Balthus chose to find his chief mentor in the 19th century realist Gustave Courbet, who said: "Create a suggestive magic that contains both the object and the subject, the world outside the artist and the artist himself." But Balthus was also entranced by the surrealists' probings into the unconscious. He painted streets, landscapes and people, all arranged in a well-thought-out design, all strangely still and silent, all a little unnerving in mood...
...Twelve. These canvas Lolitas have aroused much arch speculation, which Balthus turns aside by jokingly pointing out that he was born in a leap year, and that "having had only twelve birthdays, I may consider myself only twelve years old." Outwardly, this man of twelve is every inch the worldly aristocrat who can converse brilliantly, if somewhat distractedly, in French, Italian, German and English. He is the most painstaking of artists: he may require as many as 40 sittings for a portrait, turns out only about five new canvases a year...