BALTHUS 1/6 – He was born and died in February, in France. Paris and Berlin, Bern and Geneva, separation of parents and the mother who falls in love with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. He approaches art with drawings that illustrate a story and the Cat Mitsou, but his artistic talent – which starts from classicism – be encouraged, during the years, from Rilke and Denis, Bonnard and Matisse. BALTHUS 2/6 – He painted human figures that portray girls, mostly in provocative contexts. His creative growth develops between poetry and painting. He travels in Italy, admiring the masterpieces of the Renaissance, but during the most mature period of his activity he starts to spread an image of himself same enigmatic. BALTHUS 3/6 – For him, the best way to consider the painter, is to not know anything about him, but simply watch its paintings. Do not forget, looking at his paintings, that he has had a very intense relationship with Switzerland, a country that has played an important role in his Youth. BALTHUS 4/6 – Often against the current, he develops in his studio a very personal style, which is linked to the Italian painting of the fifteenth century (in particular Piero della Francesca), extending to the French tradition of Poussin, Ingres and Courbet. He does not like Surrealism, preferring figuration and its secrets. BALTHUS 5/6 – His languid young nymphs, are the biggest component of mystery surrounding it. In his paintings he puts the color of tenderness and childish nostalgia, dreams, death and love, but also crime and cruelty, violence and tears (the nuances of all that is hidden in the bottom of ourselves). BALTHUS 6/6 – The cat lives his creative universe and he is the king of the cats, which says: “Long live the Cats! And we remain on our wall and we look with our contemptuous irony and haughty, the men that move as demented and that are managed badly.” You can see more on Meeting Benches, looking for: BALTHASAR KLOSSOWSKI DE ROLA (alias BALTHUS) – The human being stripped of its crust of hypocrisy
