Balthus. Obras, entrevista

The analysis of Mieke Bal focuses on the mysterious feeling of great reality and great unreality that emanate the artist’s canvases. This is, in his opinion, the quintessence of the Balthusian work: it invites the viewer to penetrate it and at the same time rejects it. We access a very personal world, but we are not told what to see. Consequently, the works act against any budget of representation and appropriation. The tool of this actuation figuration is essential for the desired effect. Although the figurative element is supposedly the most direct path to realism, in the case of Balthus, this is not the case at all. According to the author, the paintings lead the observer into a world that we know does not exist. This astute fiction makes the accusations of erotic appropriation naive and censored. In addition, reducing the production of Balthus to the painting of naked adolescents would be to discount the numerous fabrics that do not address this issue at all. The color, the space, the genres or the history are some of the fundamental concepts that the author places at the core of the work of Balthus.