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The Reaction about the Depictions of Nudity of Children in Balthus’ Paintings

As I read about the history of 20th-century artwork, I was struck by the work of Balthazar

Klossowski or, as he is better known, "Balthus." I read his memoirs (Balthus and Vircondelet),

and felt intrigued and fascinated by his opinion about the depictions of girl's nudity that he made

along his work and how such representations could be accepted or rejected as they suggest a clear

contradiction to moral values. There can be no doubt that the twentieth century was a period in

humanity’s history where the moral values profoundly contrasted from the wars and atrocities of

such times.

One of the facts that more intrigue generates me is how Balthus was born in a century

marked by atrocities, genocides and even the detonation of the first nuclear bomb; these events

could have had a significant influence on him, just as they did on every person who lived that black

Century of humanity.

The proliferation of the Erotic was something that became relevant in 20th-Century Art

discourse, and nudity's depiction was something that art allowed itself to explore more deeply.

Perhaps, such interests occurred as result of the events that took place during that century and in

opposition to the rigidity of the moral values of the nineteenth century. And so, controversy raised

on whether such representations should be considered as pornographic or whether they should

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occupy a place among the real artistic forms. Nonetheless, the case of Balthus is iconic because it

was not the nudity of mature women what generated controversy in its depictions, rather the nudity

of girls in the threshold of his sexuality and adulthood, that he stated, represented an "angelic state",

the sweetness and innocence of the childhood, not something erotic. Balthus was not the only one

who found inspiration for his work in children's nudity; there are other cases like the Proust

Photographic Albums (Lumby 3). However, Balthus work was one of the most controversial as

well as mysterious. For this reason, I question on how can the Balthus´s depiction of nude female

children be accepted even though it contradicts social morals?

In consequence, by studying the aspects and events occurred especially during the

twentieth century, my research is aimed at finding an answer to this question. My interest is on

the effect of such developments on the moral values and how their changes influence the

acceptance or disapproval of the child’s nudity shown in Balthus artistic work. My objective

proves the contrast between the moral and the artistic statements on the 20th Century on this

controversial subject.
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INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MORALS OF THE 20TH-CENTURY

Humanity's civilization, in the late nineteenth century, and perhaps in the first decade of

the twentieth century, assumed to have left behind the barbarism that had been characteristic of its

past up to that time. Western society in particular, found that it had developed a set of moral values

which, in their systematic form, could enable them to access a much higher form of civilization. It

was perhaps, by following the teachings of the modern philosophical systems of Kant or Hobbes,

that moral values were perceived as perfectly defined, rational concepts and the facts could only

be classified as right or wrong. The moral values were viewed as unobjectionable, and if at any

given moment existed doubt on any idea it meant that the judge did not have a clear concept of

moral values.

Nonetheless, the progress of the twentieth century showed that such values were not written

in stone, and how things could not always be judged as right or wrong. During the last century,

terrible events occurred which revealed how, in the name of what is right, atrocities could also be

done. Suffice it to recall Hiroshima's nuclear attack and its enduring consequences to understand

the fragility of morality during wartime conflicts. And so, a writer as Jhonatan Glove in his

Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century describes such acts when he states: “The

decisions of a few people can mean horror and death for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of

other people.” (Glover 3)

Moreover, besides the fact of how few individuals could decide upon the death of entire

towns and cities, the reality of the battlefield demonstrated that ally soldiers, when sent to combat,

encountered terrible experiences and could not be kept within the limits of moral values: “… Hugh

Thompson saw that soldiers on his own side were shooting people in ditches as the Nazis had

done.” (Glover 115)

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Likewise, technologies advances in the past century proved its possibilities to generate

massacres and showed that, even with the greatest advancement of mass communications, people

have the ability to look in another direction when faced with moralities violation. Therefore, moral

values revealed not being so well constructed as people of the twentieth century believed; some

details can be tolerated for a greater good, such as winning a war or stopping an invasion.

On the other hand, society response to nudity has changed from culture to culture and from

one period to another in art history, particularly when it comes to the appreciation of female nudity.

In most of the Classical Antiquity art, the female body was acknowledged as the representation of

the procreative role of the divinity, and so, a woman's body was seen in art not with a "sexual"

purpose but as representing the Divine nature.

With the representations of Byzantine and Gothic Art,

during the Middle Ages, the female nude took on a mostly

negative connotation, as it represented guilt and sinful, all due to

the close relationship between art and religion that occurred

during such time. However, there are few exceptions like the "La

Belle Allemande" whose nude represented the purity of the

virginal idea of the body.

It was not until Renaissance that female nudity took a

leading role in art since, from that period on, the female body

would get a significant relevance. Such approach was lead

mainly by the idea of the arithmetic perfection represented in the

feminine shapes in the paintings and sculptures; in the fine arts

Fig.1 St Mary Magdalene (1496)
in general. Gothic Art By Gregor Erhart

By Gregor Erhart
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Fig.2. Sleeping Venus (1510) By Giorgione

After Renaissance, feminine denudation was increasingly common in the Baroque, Rococo,

Neoclassical and the 19th-Century Art. Even in the 20th-Century female nudity had a wide

acceptation as a sensuality and mystery symbol, but not without controversy on its validity and

legitimation as a form of art.

While in the Middle Ages the vision of female nudity had a negative connotation for

ecclesiastical authority, in the twentieth century it faced the need to define itself categorically as

an erotic art form and not as vulgar pornography. Being artistic photography, one of the art form

which struggled the most with such debate.

Therefore, the supporters of erotic art intended to show and identify the division between

these two contrasting directions of nudity and sexuality from different artistic expressions. The

literature authorities stated that the difference is just as that which exists between complexity and
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simplicity (Lynda 104) Nevertheless, it is possible that philosophical movements, such as

structuralism, have had their influence in the appreciation of art and above all on the representation

of female nudity.

Since in the twentieth century, the spectator perception

became important and influenced in events course. For

instance, asking the ordinary spectator to participated in the

appreciation on whether a particular work could or not be

considered art, played a significant role in defining Erotic Art

(Lynda 107).

At the same period, some of the most controversial Fig.3. Girls from Dalarna Having a Bath

(1908) By Anders Zorn

depictions of nudity were those that approached children's

nudity. The portrayals were highly criticized for exposing children on early age to sexuality. It was

widely argued that children should be protected as they were still innocent and unaware of such

suggestion to sexuality, hence, they were susceptible to it.

Even so, perhaps what generates more controversy is the possibility of exposing a child

innocence to the sexualize adult environment. There exist two principal arguments on this subject.

On the one hand, those who believe such form of portrayals in the art should be eliminated argue

and assume a similarity between it and child pornography.

On the other hand, some argue that the artistic purpose of them is to show the innocence

and lack of concern for adult things just before stepping to adulthood, the midpoint where, the not

yet conscious awakening of the body, rises. Accordingly, both discourses use, simultaneously, the
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same arguments. One, to distance children's nudity from art depictions and the other to turn them

into the perfect reflection of the transition from childhood's innocence to adulthood (Lumby 3).

It seems that the conclusion about the artistic work which portrays child's nudity depends

somehow on the viewer's eye. Both the artist and the audience see a purity which belongs to the

stage of childhood, the time when children only perceive things without worrying about their

development to adulthood and their first approach to sexuality.

“That much of the erotic fetishization of children trades on the breaching of an

ultimate cultural taboo. Or to look at the problem from another angle, both

discourses of protection and discourses which sexualize children are mired in

denial — on one hand, they portray children as pure beings who are absolutely

other to the adult world, yet on the other they represent them as always on the

threshold of becoming sexual. There is, in other words, a clear if submerged

interdependence between these two apparently opposed claims.” (Lumby 6)

The perspective of the viewer then plays a significant role in the artistic work appreciation.

Not only what the artist tries to represent, but also social prejudices can modify the meaning of

such work. The legitimacy of art is always subject to the scrutiny of the public, which escapes the

author's power and can even censor him. So, the social fear for pedophilia and child pornography

plays a more important role in judging the depictions of childish nudity than the fact of whether

children are or not indeed at risk.

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BALTHUS’ STORY

Balthazar Klossowski was born on February 29, 1908, in Paris, France. Son of Erich

Klossowski, an outstanding art historian, and Elizabeth Dorothea, a painter who was also known

as "Baladine” (The Metropolitan Museum of Art.). His older brother Pierre Klossowski was a

prominent philosopher of his time. Thus, Balthus grew up within a cultural and intellectual

environment that it can be assumed, had a critical influence on his development as an artist.

Balthus´s Childhood was marked by World War I. In 1914, he was barely six years old

when the conflict began, which forced his family into exile, escaping from Paris and moving to

Switzerland and later to Geneva. About his forced mobilization Balthus stated: "Political events

introduced us to exile, the pain of separation, and fixed our hearts with the feeling of abandonment.

During my childhood, I lived through the experience of art in a carnal and intuitive way " (Balthus

and Vircondelet Part 2 p.1). Therefore, there is a high possibility on the relevance of those

experiences in Balthus' conception of art. His paintings transformed in the process where he could

express that lost innocence among exile and the hardships brought to his life by wars.

Balthus stated that his first approach to art was a book with a series of pencil and ink

drawings about his missing cat which he called "Mitsou” (Balthus and Vircondelet Part 2 p. 1) and

it was published with an introduction by the poet Rainer Maria Rike. Rainer was a friend of his

family and a great supporter of Balthus´s artistic career.

During his youth, he returned to Paris with his older brother, where he developed his

artistic career and featured the principal aspects of his works, female nudity, mainly in young

girls (The Metropolitan Museum of Art.). The girls were represented in poses that some

interpreted as provocative, but that could also be the daily life moments representations.
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Additionally, he never accepted this type of erotic interpretation of his paintings and

claimed that such reading was in the mind of the viewer (Balthus and Vircondelet Part 2 P. 1).

At that time, he worked in a series of paintings about his Parisian neighbor Thérèsey, whose

series bears the same name and contains his self-portrait "The King of Cats" which are among

his most outstanding works.

In 1935, he prepared the sets for Artaud's work, "Les Cenci," and in 1936 he painted the

portrait of André Derain. In 1938, he presented his first solo exhibition at the Pierre Matisse

Gallery in New York. Among his most outstanding works it can be mentioned the portrait of

"Joan Miró and His Daughter Dolores" and "Thérèse Dreaming." In the 1940s he designed the

sets for various theatrical productions and established a great friendship with poets such as

Malraux and Paul Eluard.

Fig.4. Thérése (1938) Balthus (Baltassar Klossowski)

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Fig 3 The King of Cats (1935) Balthus (Baltassar Klossowski)

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ANALYSIS OF “THÉRÈSE DREAMING” AND THE “GUITAR LESSON.”

When approaching these two works,

"Théresa Dreaming" and "Guitar Lesson," shock

is inevitable with the first glance at them. Even

though "Guitar Lesson" may be suggesting a

situation that today would be unacceptable, the

shock is not produced for what may be considered

an obscene representation, but rather by Balthus

ability to express bodies fluidity, which proves

that Balthus was a brush genius.

Fig. 6 Thérèse Dreaming (1938) Balthus

(Balthassar Klossowski)

Thérèse's body looks like it will

almost move, as well as the guitar teacher's

hand, but time stops at that moment. The time

of Balthus' paints is both fluid and static. On

the one hand, his characters are trapped in the

scene and, on the other, the fluidity of his

brushstrokes makes us see movement on it: a

moment that never will end.

Fig. 7 Guitar Lesson (1934) Balthus (Balthassar
Klossowski)
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In both paintings, young girls are represented on the mysterious threshold that goes from

youth to adulthood, a moment when adolescents find themselves uncomfortable by been between

the childhood and adulthood time.

It is possible to perceive Thérèsa´s body in a relaxed pose; she seems to be absorbed in her

thoughts. Her pose reminds the viewer of that age when a girl's body begins to enter maturity, but

she does not yet feel shame over such development. Thérèsa is still a carefree little girl entirely

innocent of a spectator who may be giving her image a sexual intonation, in her mind, her action

is only to dream.

In "Guitar Lesson" the scene is different; the young woman appears to be being initiated

into the world of carnal desires by her teacher. That scene can be scandalous, but one could ask: if

it´s the representation outrageous or if the shameful thing is, that such events happen? The public

can scandalize herself about these descriptions in the art, and look away, Just as they do to the war

atrocities and be able to perpetuate the suffering of their soldiers on the battlefield, as we have

seen before.

The lack of cats in the scene can give us to understand that the girl is closer to adulthood

than to childhood in the Lesson. This can be seen as a clear reference to Balthus youth himself

when his first artistic work was about a cat. The presence of this element may be representing

childhood's proximity; Thérèsa infancy is not as close to her as before.

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DIFFERENT APPROACHES TOWARDS BALTHUS’ PAINTINGS

Balthus' vision of his artwork is one of the most impressive. For him, the painting was his

whole life (Balthus and Vircondelet Part 2 p 1), to paint was the only thing he knew to do for

every moment of his life, even when he did not have a paintbrush in his hand.

Although criticism saw eroticism in his girlish nudity works (Knight), Balthus himself

always denied such relation:

"Some have claimed that my undressed young girls are erotic. I never painted them with

that intent, which would have made them anecdotal, mere objects of gossips. I aimed at

precisely the opposite, to surround them with a halo of silence and depth. (. . .) That's

why I think of them as angels, beings from elsewhere, whether heaven, or another ideal

place that suddenly opened and passed through time, leaving traces of wonderment,

enchantment, or just as icon." (Balthus and Vircondelet 2002, Part 3 p1)

For him, the intention of his paintings was never to stain the image of these girls with

eroticism, but rather portrait them as sacred elements of his work. Perhaps, his childhood's

memories among war and exile inspired Balthus to try to capture and perpetuate the moments

within the journey from innocence to adulthood. It is precisely that "angelic" element of his girls

that allows their innocence to be immortalized (Balthus and Vircondelet Part p1). According to

him, only once he represented something intentionally provocative, and it was with the "Guitar

Lesson.". But he admitted to never, even with his intentional provocations, had voyeuristic

intentions (Balthus and Vircondelet Part 4 p115).

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Since his beginnings, Balthasar had good support from the

artistic world. His first work "Mitsuo" was well received by the

German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who also wrote the introduction

and was in charge of the publication in 1921 (The Metropolitan

Museum of Art.).

He also earned the admiration of other great and

representative characters in arts' history during his lifetime Fig 4 Mitsuo (1921) Balthus
(Balthassar Klossowski)
(Russell). Among them, Picasso, of whom Balthus declared:

“Picasso respected my need for independence and my refusal to pledge allegiance to what he had

indirectly contributed to establish.” (Balthus and Vircondelet Part 3 p2)..

Picasso claimed Balthus as a real painter and a much better one than all the young artists

that for him only made replicas (Knight). In general, the artistic world had a proper appreciation

of his art, though Balthus insisted that the Surrealists never had a good opinion of him since he

always kept himself away from their formulations (Balthus and Vircondelet Part 4).

Furthermore, the artistic criticism to the work of Balthus could recognize in it an

originality that he maintained throughout his career: “(…) Balthus eschewed the prevailing

movements, from the entreaties of the clubby Surrealists to the various types of Abstraction …”

(Riley 208) The ability to keep his method was notorious in Balthus' work. He knew how to take

techniques both from the Renaissance classics and from his contemporaries (Riley 209) to create

his path. Hence, there was always the intention to link his work with the movements of his

contemporaries, but he always detached himself from them.

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During his artistic life, Balthus was often

associated with surrealism. Perhaps, it had to do

with the fact that he participated in a major surrealist

art exhibition in 1934 in The Gallerie Pierre

(Knight). But it could also be about his style and

form of brushstrokes, which could remind of the

Surrealists paintings, very common in his time; a

technique that may have been influenced his style.

Fig 5 The Street (1933) Balthus (BAlthassar
Klossoswki)

Nevertheless, it is an exceptional thing that

Balthus always kept himself from an approach to

surrealism (Balthus and Vircondelet Part 4)

However, it seems it was from the ideas of

surrealism he wanted to distance himself, no its

technique. He claimed to never have used

surrealism as a "crutch or a foil" (Balthus and

Fig 6 La persistencia de la memoria (1931) Salvador
Vircondelet Part 2 p1). On the other hand, Balthus Dalí

chose to represent more the structural forms rather than chaos: “Unlike the Surrealists, I didn’t

want to express diverse injunctions, the effects of chaos, and unconscious flaws. Instead, I wanted

to reveal and expose them by way of a structure. Arrangement and construction.” (Balthus and

Vircondelet Part 3 p4)

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Conclusion

Balthus was born during a century marked by countless atrocities in human history. The

advancement of technology not only allowed humanity to access increasingly globalized media

but it also generated tools of mass destruction. Both World Wars impressed all the people who

lived them, and the media allowed those who were not on the battlefield an approach to the war

horrors.

The philosophical heritage of the nineteenth-century argued that moral values could be

thought and defined rationally so that they can remain unalterable, however, the twentieth-century

left in evidence that it is tough to maintain moral values regardless of the situations that humanity

is experiencing. Those who lived the war's atrocities (attacks, genocides, and other political

convulsions) of the 20th century, were faced with the reality that things could not be evaluated

under the nuances of right and wrong; witnessing such situations can blur the line between good

and evil.

Balthus paintings appear in a time period where moral values were cracked, showing that

their rigidity could not respond correctly to reality. The nakedness of his young girls attracted

much controversy over his reputation, due to the transgression of the moral values that his work

could cause. But, above all, it began with the social fear of pornography and child abuse; The

reaction against these nudes was mainly to protect the innocence of the children against the dangers

of sexualizing them.

Balthus, who experienced exile during the First World War and in his adulthood the

convulsion of World War II, had a particular vision on the supposedly, sexualization of children.

For him, the sexualization was not in the children that he painted but in the eyes of the adults who
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saw them. Sexualization was everywhere during the twentieth century, not in his works, where he

claimed to represent the innocence and divine character of the passage between childhood and

adulthood.

The paintings of the girls' nudes were never fully accepted in the twentieth century, and

even today they still generate controversy and repulsion in some. Nevertheless, his argument was

always the same, he did not see anything erotic in his paintings, and that perception only existed

in the society that surrounded him, and possibly, it was this dichotomy what he wanted to represent

with his art.

The last century history and the whole controversy about nudity in the art would make

anyone wonder about social hypocrisy in the face of morally repudiate facts. Erotic art managed

to take a step forward to overcome this hypocrisy when, as mentioned earlier in the research, it

dared to ask the public itself which of the works they exhibited were art or mere vulgarity. We

must be able to do the same in front of morally obscure facts; we should ask ourselves whether

violations of moral values in wars or the use of technologies capable of killing millions of people

in an instant are acceptable. The modern world allows an approach to social and political events,

due to the internet and the mass media, in a way not seen before, so it enables individuals to get

involved, debate and seek to build a better society, where the past indifference and mistakes do

not happen again.

It is a mistake to think that moral values can be absolutes. That is the learning that the

twentieth century left to the world. It is not possible to think only of right or wrong conclusions,

and never justify the atrocities to achieve a greater good. Balthus's works and his attempt to

immortalize innocence in his nudes’ girls is the way he chose to denounce the loss of that
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innocence in the twentieth-century caused by war atrocities. The controversy surrounding his

paintings also allows us to make a revision of that dark time in humanities history.
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Works Cited

Balthus, and Alain Vircondelet. 2002. Vanished Splendors: A Memoir. New York: Ecco.

Glover, Jhonathan. 2001. Humanity A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. Yale: Yale

University Press.

Knight, Christopher. 2001. "Balthus; French Artist Was Know for Paintings of Adolescent

Girls." Los Angeles Times. Accessed April 2017, 2017.

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/19/local/me-27401.

Lumby, Catharine. 2010. "Ambiguity, Children, Representation and Sexuality." CLCWeb:

Comparative Literature and Culture 12 (4): Article 5.

Lynda, Nead. n.d. "Erotic Art: A Frame for Desire." In The Famale Nude: Art, obscenity, And

sexuality, 104 - 108. New York: Routledge. Accessed December 18, 2016.

www.questiaschool.com/read/109127231/.

Riley, Charles A. 2001. "King of cats." In Aristocracy and the Modern imagination., 202-219.

Hannover: U of New England.

Russell, John. 2001. "Balthus, Painter Whose Suggestive figures caused a Stir, Is Dead at 92."

The New York Times. Accessed April 12, 2017.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/arts/balthus-painter-whose-suggestive-figures-

caused-a-stir-is-dead-at-92.html.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2013. "Balthus: Cats and Girsl-Pantings and Provocations."

September 25. Accessed April 12, 21017. http://www.metmuseum.org.