The Dream 1955

Balthus’s painting, The Dream, with it's muted colours, and slightly awkward composition, feels like a snapshot of something not quite real. The paint here isn’t trying to hide itself, you can see the brushstrokes, the texture – like he’s inviting you into the process. Look at the girl standing. There’s a flatness to her, but also a weird kind of depth in the way her arm is rendered, as if she is coming out of the painting towards you. She is holding a flower out to the sleeping girl, as though she is a character in her dream. This painting reminds me of other contemporary artists like Nicole Eisenman, who uses similar spatial ambiguity to create work that is both familiar and dreamlike. Art isn’t about answers; it’s about the questions we ask, the conversations we have, and the spaces we create in between.