Met Museum: Balthus: Cats and Girls

The title of the current exhibit at the Met Museum, Balthus: Cats and Girls - Paintings and Provocations, is titillating.  The show itself is rather enigmatic, not least of all because it fails to address its real subject - the sexualization of young women.  In this display of reticence it is as one with the artist himself who steadfastly refused to provide either biographical details concerning his own life or background information regarding his paintings.  The Wikipedia entry on Balthus quotes a telegram he sent to the Tate in succinct response to one request for such data:

"NO BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS. BEGIN: BALTHUS IS A PAINTER OF WHOM NOTHING IS KNOWN. NOW LET US LOOK AT THE PICTURES. REGARDS. B."

Balthus was exceptionally careful in the depictions displayed here of fourteen year old Thérèse Blanchard.  Although the poses taken by the model - or given her by the artist - are undeniably suggestive, there is nothing explicit or overtly sexual in them.  Nor is the artist's relationship to his model ever made clear though hints are provided in the works themselves.  In an oversized reproduction near the exhibit's exit, Thérèse is posed with leg drawn up; a giant cat has been placed at her feet as a proxy for Balthus himself.  Perhaps the source of such caution on Balthus' part can be found in the uproar that greeted the first showing of The Guitar Lesson (not included here) in Paris in 1934.  Balthus did years later paint Frédérique Tison in the nude at Chassy, but the model was at that time age seventeen and could be considered already an adult.

Also included in this show are the forty ink drawings from Mitsou, completed when the artist was a precocious eleven year old and published in 1921 by his mother's lover, the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  By far the most interesting piece on display though, is Le chat de la Méditerranée (1949), Balthus' self portrait as a cat painted at the suggestion of the vicomtesse de Noailles and meant to be hung as an advertisement at the seafood restaurant La Méditerranée, a meeting place for Parisian artists and intelligentsia. This delightful work is as close to surrealism as Balthus ever came and it alone is worth a visit.

The exhibit continues through January 12, 2014.