Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola), long considered one of the great figure painters of the twentieth century, has remained one of its most elusive creative spirits. Born into an aristocratic Polish family in 1908, Balthus grew up in the most cosmopolitan and cultivated circles of Geneva, Berlin, and finally Paris, where his artist parents settled in 1924. Attracted at an early age by the restraint and timelessness of the old masters, Balthus studied painting with Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, and Andre Derain. He was also fascinated by the work of the Surrealists, and he began to paint images of young girls in enigmatic settings suffused with an understated eroticism. While his calm, almost architectonic forms are reminiscent of Italian Renaissance art, the strange atmosphere of his paintings conveys a distinctly twentieth-century sensibility. The artist has remained silent on the underlying meanings of his images, and indeed has spent much of his life avoiding attention. Balthus's work was little recognized until the late 1960s, but his remarkable achievement finally received international acclaim in 1983, when a major retrospective exhibition opened at the Musee National d'Art Moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the City Museum, Tokyo. Still, the full extent of his output has not been known: nearly 100 paintings and numerous drawings, sketchbooks, and even sculptures have escaped notice. This monumental, lavishly illustrated volume, the outcome of years of study, reveals a surprisingly extensive oeuvre. An introductory essay by Jean Clair, curator of the landmark 1983 exhibition, defines the sometimesunexpected poetic, literary, and philosophical sources of Balthus's early inspiration. Then follows a full catalogue raisonne of Balthus's work by Virginie Monnier, published here in its original French. The catalogue includes all of the artist's 350 known paintings, nearly 1,000 previously unpublished drawings, and 50 sketch-books -- 2,100 works in all -- which enable us to understand his working methods and document the creation of most of his paintings. Long overdue, this comprehensive publication adds new luster to the reputation of an important and intriguing artist.

Explores the origins and permutations of Balthus's obsessions with adolescents and felines, addresses the crucial influence of such key figures as poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and provides the recollections and comments of the girl models.

Mieke Bal analysis is focused in the eerie sense of very real and very unreal that the paintings emanate. She considers this the heart of Balthus work. It invites viewers in and repels them at the same time. We get access to a world all his own, but are not told what is there to see.Thus, the works labor against assumptions of representation and appropriation. The means of this labor figuration is indispensable for the effet.Although figurativity is supposedly the royal road to realism, in Balthus s case it is not at all. Bal argues that the paintings draw the viewer into a world we honw not to exist.This canny fictionality makes allegations of erotic appropriation naive and censoring.Reducing Balthus s work to the paintings of nude adolescent girls is, moreover, ignoring his many works that are not in the least focused on this theme. Color, space, genres or history are some of the key concepts that the author put in the center of Balthus work. 130 illustrations

This critical study of the life and work of the French artist Balthus serves as the catalogue of an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris