Study to "Guitar lesson" 1934

Curator: This is a study by Balthus, created in 1934. It's a pencil and charcoal drawing on paper, a preliminary sketch for his painting "Guitar Lesson." What are your immediate thoughts looking at this, our version? Editor: Disquiet. The way the fabric drapes and the pale body arched unnaturally... It hints at vulnerability, almost as if she is an offering. The rough sketch style adds to the raw, unsettling quality. Curator: Balthus often explored the threshold between childhood and adolescence. And with respect to the artistic genealogy, nude female forms of this period evoke centuries of symbols relating to idealized beauty. Do you notice that at all? Editor: I see what you mean by a certain idealized trope, but, frankly, in the full painting you see it has decidedly moved far from conventional beauty towards something that veers closely into predatory voyeurism, particularly in relation to the theme implied by its title. Curator: I can see that critique, especially within our current social landscape. But stepping back into its time, you know Balthus’s figures can be seen to exist outside of the flow of time itself; in his compositions there’s a timelessness… almost archetypal... what meaning does that give the themes that concern us? Editor: I am not sure archetypes exist completely removed from any social setting and thus “safe” in that distance. Even as studies, the visual language employed around the figures has weight, rooted as it is in historical power imbalances. Think how Ingres before him made sexually charged, provocative figure compositions in which, like here, the subject seems unable to look back at us. Curator: That’s an interesting connection… I’m always struck by the contrast between Balthus’s deliberate classical technique and the disruptive unease his subjects inspire, but maybe those archetypes are a projection as well, filtered through subjective experience and… perhaps less universal than we believe? Editor: Perhaps, and the responsibility lies in how we interpret and engage with these layered interpretations from our own position and place. It certainly provides much food for thought when viewing this piece. Curator: Indeed. These works can offer a compelling insight into our own cultural codes and artistic inheritances. Editor: Yes, into how those very artistic inheritances are always implicated within our broader political moment.