黑料不打烊

鈥淲hen I have finished my paintings, I put the drawings for them on the floor and walk on them until they are erased鈥�.  

Balthus鈥� statement on the occasion of his 1956 retrospective at MoMA reflects the artist鈥檚 facetiousness and the mystery with which he liked to surround his work. The numerous drawings and notebooks that escaped erasure provide a revealing view of the artist鈥檚 work in the studio: the sketchbook at the heart of the Perrotin exhibition shows the artist鈥檚 inspirations, the discipline of sketching, the models taking up their poses, and the maturation of the creative process.

The exhibition, proposed by Edwart Vignot, takes a look at Balthus鈥� creative processes, using archival footage from 1993, the works of nineteenth-century artists who influenced him, and those of his contemporaries some of whom were fellow travelers. Those overlapping inspirations are followed to the present day, attesting to Balthus鈥� enduring influence. Based on archive photos, Chen Ke鈥檚 portraits evoke the bodies of the Neue Sachlichkeit as much as the solitude of Balthusian characters, also evident in Maxime Biou鈥檚 absorbed nudes. A painter of closed interiors with eerie atmospheres, Balthus鈥� positioning of figures in bare compositions is echoed in Jens F盲nge鈥檚 surrealist-tinged collages as well as in Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux鈥檚 solitary characters, or else in Mal霉 Dalla Piccola鈥檚 Amphibie social with its striking onirism. Jean-Philippe Delhomme鈥檚 still lifes, reclining women, and his series on the reserves of the Mus茅e d鈥橭rsay draw on the same sources as Balthus. This is also true for Alain Jacquet who recreates a strange version of Ingres鈥� The Source.