Balthus

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), July, 1998 by Robert S. Rothenberg

Home Vision Public Media / 51 minutes / $39.95

Over the years, Home Vision's series of documentaries on the works of famous living artists has brought their masterpieces to the attention of the viewing public, complemented by interviews with collectors, curators, contemporaries, family, and friends. As the series has progressed, the most well-known artists having been covered, less-familiar painters have come to be featured. Now, it is the turn of Count Balthazar Klossowski de Rola, the Polish-Swiss artist who signs his work simply Balthus.

The 90-year-old painter still is active, though, as he declares to the interviewer, he is unhappy with the limitations aging has put on his work. His frequently returned-to themes--brooding landscapes, humanized felines, and ominous knives--are presented throughout the video, interspersed with reminiscences of his relationships with artists Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti and author Rainer Maria Rilke.

What sets Balthus apart from other well-received artists is the recurrent erotic theme undergirding his many paintings of prepubescent girls. With his subjects posed either nude or partially so, despite his denials, there is a distinctly pedophiliac feeling to these canvases, particularly those of young girls with their underpants exposed. While critics and friends talk of the sense of tension, contained violence, and sensuality in his work, it is the disturbing view of him--in home movies as well as the present-day interview--in close physical contact with his adolescent models that dominates and creates an uneasy tone.

Can appreciation of an artist be separated from his choice of subject matter? This fascinating video gives viewers an opportunity to draw their own conclusions.