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A Balthus Notebook. New York: Ecco Press, 1989. 90 pp. 7 illus. (b&w)
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A Balthus Notebook
A Balthus Notebook. New York: Ecco Press, 1989. 90 pp. 7 illus. (b&w)
Text comprises 64 numbered sections of notebook entries, varying in length from one sentence to several paragraphs. Several of the notes include or are followed by references to other books. As example:
_________
1
If there are eternal values in art, it seems they are preserved only by those who strive to realize them in a new content (Schapiro, 168)
List of illustrations (located between p. 58 and p. 59):
- The Street. 1933. oil on canvas 76 3/4 by 94 1/2 in.
- Joan Miró and His Daughter Delores. 1933-38. oil on canvas 51 1/4 by 35 in.
- André Derain. 1936. oil on wood 44 3/8 by 28 1/2 in.
- Passage du Commerce Saint-André. 1952-54. oil on canvas 115 by 130 in.
- The Children. 1937. oil on canvas 49 1/4 by 50 3/4 in.
- The Painter and His Model. 1981. casein tempura on canvas, 89 1/4 by 91 3/4 in.
- The Golden Days. 1944-46. oil on canvas 58 1/4 by 78 3/8 in.)
"The painting of Balthus, enigmatic, poetic, and controversial, is both deeply traditional and radically modern. In tracing some of its kinship with the poetry of Rilke (Balthus's childhood mentor), with Picasso and others, Guy Davenport attempts in this set of meditations written over several years in his notebooks to place Balthus as the modern master in whose hands the great tradition of Western painting now principally lies. These terse notes suggest readings of several of the major paintings, trace themes and recurring images, and pose speculative ideas about the meaning and nature of Balthus. These notes are not an orderly argument by an art critic but a progression of responses, more or less objective, by a writer who sees Balthus as a great poet as well as a great painter." (unattributed, dust jacket, inside front fold)
List of "Works Cited" (pp. 89-90):
- Baudelaire, Charles, The Mirror of Art: Critical Studies, tr. and ed. Jonathan Mayne. NY: Phaidon, 1955.
- Colette, Mitsou, tr. Raymond Postgate, in Six Novels by Colette. NY: Modern Library, 1957.
- Comfort, Alex, Darwin and the Naked Lady: Discursive Essays on Biology and Art. NY: G. Braziller, 1961.
- Dobyns, Stephen, The Balthus Poems. NY: Atheneum, 1982.
- Klossowski de Rola, Stanislas, Balthus. NY: Harper & Row, 1983.
- Levi-Strauss, Claude, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, tr. James Harle Bell, John Richard Sturmer, and Rodney Needham. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.
- _______, The View from Afar, tr. Joachim Neugroschel and Phoebe Hoss. NY: Basic Books, 1985.
- Leymarie, Jean, Balthus. Geneva, Skira, 1979.
- _______, and Federico Fellini, Balthus. Venice: Edizioni La Biennale, 1980.
- Lifton, Betty Jean, The King of Children: A Biography of Janusc Korczak. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1988.
- Livingstone, Marco, R. B. Kitaj. NY: Rizzoli, 1985.
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Primacy of Perception, ed. James M. Edie. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
- Paz, Octavio, A Tree Within, tr. Eliot Weinberger. NY: New Directions, 1988.
- Rewald, Sabine, Balthus. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harry N. Abrams, 1984.
- Schapiro, Meyer, Modern Art. NY: George Braziller, 1978.
- Smith, Gary, ed., On Walter Benjamin: Critical Essays and Recollections. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 1988.
- Stein, Gertrude, Picasso. London: B. T. Batsford, 1938.
- Welty, Eudora, Acrobats in a Park. Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1980.
- Zolla, Elémire, Archetypes. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.
Photograph of GD ( dust jacket, inside rear fold) by Douglas P. Haynes.
Front dust jacket illustration, The Cherry Tree, Balthus, 1940, oil on canvas, 35 1/2 by 28 1/4 inches. Collection of Henry Luce III.
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