Balthus, Exhibition, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid: 19 February 2019-26 May 2019

Balthus Klossowski de Rola (1908-2001) spent his childhood in Paris with both his parents (who were Polish expatriates), before becoming a refugee in Berlin as a result of WW1. Growing up he was surrounded by art as his father Erich Klossowski was an art historian who often invited other creatives such as Andre Gide and Jean Cocteau to the family home. His parents divorced and his mother married Rilke, who encouraged Balthus to complete his first publication (a series of comic book styled pictures) aged 13 in 1921.

He is particularly famous for the fact that he often went against the artistic trends of the time in his own creative direction, frequently insisting that his paintings should be ‘seen and not read about’. It is also worth noting that he took inspiration from art historians such as Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio and Poussin amongst others. Often full of contradictions and contrasts, his themes include; tranquillity with tension; mystery with reality and eroticism with innocence. The latter theme explains why he is somewhat a controversial figure, as he has been heavily criticised for sexually explicit works involving pubescent girls.

The exhibition displays paintings from throughout Balthus’s career starting in the 1920s. By the end of the 1940s he had established his reputation as a painter and by the 1950s had progressed to focus on landscape painting. Later on in the 1960s he moved to Italy and at this point in began experimenting with the technique ‘Renaissance Frescoes’ focusing on painting human figures. Part of the beauty of Balthus is that his style is almost impossible to pin down into one specific classification, which is evident in this collection of figurative works combining Pre-Renaissance techniques, surrealist undertones and heavy outlines.

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

Paseo del Prado, 8, 28014 Madrid