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拍品專文
Ten years after fulfilling his obligatory military service in the French Army, Balthus returned to active duty at the beginning of World War II in 1939 and was immediately sent to the front. He quickly fell ill and was demobilized. For the remainder of World War II, Balthus lived with his family in Switzerland where the majestic mountains and vistas of his childhood would play a monumental role in his paintings.
Prior to the war Balthus had quietly set out to "reinstate realistic painting in contemporary terms" (J.T. Soby, in exh. cat., op cit, 1956, p. 7). He had always admired the work of Piero della Francesca, Poussin and Courbet among others and looked back to classical work as a standard of excellence. The qualities he revered in the paintings of the great masters of the 17th century such as clarity, logic and order became prominent in his own work--with a modern twist. Within a classical setting, Balthus pursued his other great theme--the introspective life of children and adolescents.
Le cerisier is a superb combination of these two conceptions. Executed in Savoie, Switzerland, a bucolic province between the Rhône Valley and the Lake of Bourget, Le cerisier juxtaposes the grandeur of the mountains against the atmospheric stillness of the young girl carefully poised on a ladder gathering some fruit. A perfect summer scene has been set with intense clarity: a gentle light plays across the grass, the sky is a pure blue and the earthy brown and green tones of the mountain create a subdued and almost ominous backdrop. Yet, in this utter moment of stillness, there is a quiver of unease. The viewer is struck by the loneliness of the central figure as she balances on ladder in a large field with no other human or animal in sight.
The subject of Le cerisier has a well-known precedent. Poussin depicted the same theme in his magnificent L'Automne or La Grappe de raisin rapportée de la Terre promise. In Poussin's monumental rendition, however, the woman has been placed in the distance, selecting her fruit from a tree placed behind the two men in the foreground who carry the harvested grapes. Poussin portrayed a moment of bucolic serenity: each individual conducts their seperate task within their own space of the composition. However, they are all working towards a common goal: the product of their labors will be enjoyed at a harvest feast. In contrast, by choosing to place his young subject as the center of the composition, Balthus has interjected a 20th century sensibility, where the theme of the painting is not a grand pastoral scene but rather the solitude of a single figure.
(fig. 1) Nicolas Poussin, L'Automne or La Grappe de raisin rapportée de la Terre promise, 1660-1664. ©c Musée du Louvre, Paris. A. Dequier-M. Bard.
Prior to the war Balthus had quietly set out to "reinstate realistic painting in contemporary terms" (J.T. Soby, in exh. cat., op cit, 1956, p. 7). He had always admired the work of Piero della Francesca, Poussin and Courbet among others and looked back to classical work as a standard of excellence. The qualities he revered in the paintings of the great masters of the 17th century such as clarity, logic and order became prominent in his own work--with a modern twist. Within a classical setting, Balthus pursued his other great theme--the introspective life of children and adolescents.
Le cerisier is a superb combination of these two conceptions. Executed in Savoie, Switzerland, a bucolic province between the Rhône Valley and the Lake of Bourget, Le cerisier juxtaposes the grandeur of the mountains against the atmospheric stillness of the young girl carefully poised on a ladder gathering some fruit. A perfect summer scene has been set with intense clarity: a gentle light plays across the grass, the sky is a pure blue and the earthy brown and green tones of the mountain create a subdued and almost ominous backdrop. Yet, in this utter moment of stillness, there is a quiver of unease. The viewer is struck by the loneliness of the central figure as she balances on ladder in a large field with no other human or animal in sight.
The subject of Le cerisier has a well-known precedent. Poussin depicted the same theme in his magnificent L'Automne or La Grappe de raisin rapportée de la Terre promise. In Poussin's monumental rendition, however, the woman has been placed in the distance, selecting her fruit from a tree placed behind the two men in the foreground who carry the harvested grapes. Poussin portrayed a moment of bucolic serenity: each individual conducts their seperate task within their own space of the composition. However, they are all working towards a common goal: the product of their labors will be enjoyed at a harvest feast. In contrast, by choosing to place his young subject as the center of the composition, Balthus has interjected a 20th century sensibility, where the theme of the painting is not a grand pastoral scene but rather the solitude of a single figure.
(fig. 1) Nicolas Poussin, L'Automne or La Grappe de raisin rapportée de la Terre promise, 1660-1664. ©c Musée du Louvre, Paris. A. Dequier-M. Bard.