Name: A Balthus Notebook
SKU: 53484100
Price: 478.00 TWD
Availability: InStock
Author: Guy Davenport

Type

Physical Book

Author

Contributions by

Publisher

Year

2020

Language

English

Pages

112

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

17.5x10.7x1.3 cm

Weight

0.09 kg.

ISBN13

9781644230329

Edition No.

Synopsis "A Balthus Notebook"

In his 1989 book on Balthus--the storied and controversial artist who worked in Paris throughout the twentieth century--Guy Davenport gives one of the most nuanced, literary, and compelling readings of the work of this master. Reading it today highlights the change in perspectives on sexuality and nudity in art in the past thirty years. Written over several years in his notebooks, Davenport's distinct reflections on Balthus's paintings try to explain why his work is so radical, and why it has so often come under scrutiny for its depiction of girls and women. Davenport throws the lens back on the viewer and asks: is it us or Balthus who reads sexuality into these paintings? For Davenport, the answer is clear: Balthus may indeed show us periods in adolescent development that are uncomfortable to view, but the eroticization exists primarily on the part of the viewer. Arguing that Balthus's figures are erotic only if we make them so, and that their innocence is more present than anything pornographic in them, Davenport posits that the paintings hold up a mirror to our own perversities and force us, difficultly, to confront them. He writes, "The nearer an artist works to the erotic politics of his own culture, the more he gets its concerned attention. Gauguin's naked Polynesian girls, brown and remote, escape the scandal of Balthus's, although a Martian observer would not see the distinction." Davenport's critique helps us understand Balthus in our times--something we need more than ever as we crucially confront sexual politics in visual art.

Guy Davenport

(Author)

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Guy Davenport (1927-2005) was a translator, poet, critic, illustrator, painter, professor, and American writer. He studied Art at Duke University, where he graduated in Classical and English Literature. He is best known for his modernist style short stories, but his range of works is broad and includes poetry, translation, and criticism. He was an English professor for three decades, having taught at Haverford College and the University of Kentucky. He received translation awards from the PEN Society and the Academy of American Poets. Davenport published more than 40 books, including collections of short stories, translations from Greek, illustrated works, a novel, and critical studies on literature, culture, and art, among them the essays The Geography of the imagination and The Hunter Gracchus, as well as five collections of poems among which are Flowers and Leaves (1966; 1991) and Thasos and Ohio: Poems and Translations, 1950-1980 (1986). He received a MacArthur Fellowship, an O. Henry Award, and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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