Katia reading 1974

Curator: Balthus painted this picture, “Katia reading”, back in 1974. It's currently held in a private collection, and it seems to be an oil painting. What's your initial take? Editor: There's a strange stillness here. It feels incredibly posed, almost theatrical, like a stage set just before the actors arrive, or perhaps just after they have departed. The young girl's posture is oddly languid. Curator: He had a particular way of depicting adolescence, didn't he? A kind of detached observation, bordering on the voyeuristic perhaps. He painted figures like they're frozen. What do you make of this girl, Katia, and the atmosphere? Editor: I see a painting that prompts uncomfortable questions around power dynamics and representation. Balthus was clearly fascinated with young girls, but his work invites a critical discussion around the male gaze and its effect on how young women and girls are viewed and objectified. The textures are wonderful—a muted symphony of gold and sienna! The light falling across the wall makes the whole scene glow gently. Curator: His spaces are interesting – that wall with its odd surface. She sits in this world of layered textures. This piece reminds me of something Giorgio Morandi would concoct but including people as primary elements. What is Katia reading though? What sort of tales could fire a young imagination while held up inside what feels like a prison, with no windows? Editor: Maybe we are invited to be voyeurs looking through the keyhole of her soul, a perspective shaped through art history itself? If the book is indeed her escape, the space then becomes a metaphorical cage, and that can certainly prompt unsettling implications about freedom, or a lack thereof, in the domestic sphere, particularly for young women at that time. Curator: A very enclosed sphere, isn't it? Still, even in such confinement, her gaze remains fixed, and she almost vibrates through the canvas; whatever she may read seems to take her somewhere. Editor: Absolutely. And that potential, the suggestion of worlds unfolding behind that young face, gives the painting a complex, haunting beauty. Curator: I’m glad that you mentioned “complex,” since indeed there remains always much to discover, to return to. Editor: Agreed. There are hidden corridors of inquiry within Balthus's visual language; it’s what makes the work so challenging and enduring.