Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Private collection, since 1984
Venice, 39th Biennale, Balthus, 29 May – 29 September 1980, no. 189
London, New Spirit in painting, 1981, no.14, p. 218
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou-Musée National d’Art Moderne and New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Balthus, respectively 5 November 1983 – 23 January 1984, cat. 61, no. 229, ill. pp. 212, 380 and 29 February – 13 May 1984, no. 50
Kyoto, Museum of the City of Kyoto, Balthus, 17 June – 22 July 1984
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art-Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation and Rome, Villa Medici, Balthus, respectively 30 June – 17 September 1990, no. 103, ill. p. 126 (the exhibition subsequently travelled to Rome, under the aegis of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 9 October – 18 November 1990, ill. p. 179)
Lausanne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Balthus, 29 May – 29 August 1993
Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Balthus, 30 January – 1 April 1996, ill
Rome, Academia Valentino, Omaggio a Balthus, 24 October 1996 – 31 January 1997, p. 113
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art-Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Classics of Modern Art, 27 June – 19 September 1999, pp. 148-152, ill. pp. 148-149, 152
Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Balthus, 9 September 2001 – 6 January 2002
Vevey (Switzerland), Musée Jenisch, Balthus: De Piero della Francesca à Alberto Giacometti, 12 May – 25 August 2002
Rossinière, Fondation Balthus, La Magie des paysages, 1 July – 17 September 2006
Rome, Villa Medici, Balthus, 21 October 2015 – 24 January 2016
Jean Leymarie and Federico Fellini, Balthus, Venice, La Biennale di Venezia, 1980, ill. pp. 49-50, pp. 70-71
Jean Leymarie, Balthus, Geneva, Skira, 1982, ill. pp. 120-121, p. 149
Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, Balthus: Paintings, London, Thames and Hudson, 1983, ill. 73
Jean Leymarie, Balthus, Geneva, Skira, 1990, ill. 50
Koharu Kisaragi, Shûji Takashina and Kunio Motoe, Balthus, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1994, ill. 56
Xiaosheng Xing, Balthus, Shanghai, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 1995, ill. 70
Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, Balthus, London, Thames and Hudson, 1996, no. 89
Virginie Monnier and Jean Clair, Balthus: Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre complet, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, no. P 337, p. 195
In 1970 Balthus purchased and renovated a medieval castle in Montecalvello settlement, in the north of Rome. There, he found his ideal place of residence: “The imposing greatness of Montecalvello retains, despite the outrages of time, an aspect, an ambiance being the hallmark of this aristocracy to which I would like our time look forward”. His keen desire to settle there would never come true. However, this place inspired him to return to a theme he had neglected for some time: the landscape.
In Montecalvello, verdant fields alternate with rocky massifs, and the landscape sometimes seems serene, sometimes melancholic, sometimes threatening. By making this choice, Balthus turns away from the most popular panorama from Montecalvello having a view of the Tiber. On the contrary, he settled at the back of the castle, where a large terrace had a view of the river’s passage, overlooked by a steep mountain, sharing large plots of land altered by agriculture. As he used to say: “From all the windows of Montecalvello, there is a painting lying before us. A painting or a prayer, it is the same thing: an innocence finally seized […] A captured immortality”.
In a series of preparatory drawings he carried out in charcoal, watercolour or pencil, he focused mainly on the rugged massif where a ruined feudal tower loomed. Once he returned to his studio in Switzerland, he widened his viewing angle by incorporating the surrounding fields, a tiny house betraying a human presence, and most importantly, a corner of terrace in the lower right corner, from where a man and an obviously younger girl share with us this vertiginous panorama. Their presence, despite their small size, allows to continue, all along the entire composition, the imaginary line of the perspective, starting from the diagonal which follows the mountain outline. Thus, the total gains in balance, readability, but also in emotion: the viewer puts himself willingly in their place, standing in front of a majestic nature, freed from any wish of control by a human hand. The addition of a fine morning mist over the river, combined with the rough fluidity of casein paint, completes the feeling of immobilized time, so well described by Jean Clair: “Balthus’ painting […] tells us nothing: time is figured in a miraculous silence. Nothing happens: everything has already passed, or everything has already happened. The fascination of his art comes from this apotheosis of time, which is also the liberation of his anguish and obsession”.