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Title: Balthus: A Biography by Nicholas Fox Weber ISBN: 0-679-40737-5 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.82 (11 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Wish there is less of the author
Comment: Well written biography is hard to find. Often than not, you see more of the author's psychology and his hangups than the subject itself. This book has great photos of the Balthus paintings and has excellent in-depth discussions regarding the paintings. However, the author's irritation/contempt/sometimes anger towards Balthus (regarding his dishonesty about his Jewish heritage, the meaning of his art, his past, etc) shows throughout the book. I have no doubt that the artist's lies regarding these matters have importance in understanding his art. However, Mr. Weber should have a little more detachment to the subject, for I cannot help feeling that his near obsessiveness on the matters somehow prevented him from gaining deeper perspective into Balthus' psyche. This is truly dissapointing because this mars the otherwise wonderfully researched and much needed biography of the artist. I only wish that the author used more control and restrain in writing. Highly recommend for anyone interested in Balthus art.
Rating: 1
Summary: The Weber Case
Comment: This book has disappointed me greatly.To all the negative reviews displayed here I can only add more... Its apparently well researched subject is just a cover-up for making yet another buck, using an artist who is lesser known, often misunderstood and provocative. Any biography of Balthus would have been appreciated at the time of the artist's old age and the obviously quick aproach of death, and people like Mr. Weber, unfortunately, quite often are the first to write in such moments. This is not a book about Balthus or his life or his art, it is about quickly making a name for himself and some money off Balthus, in the name of his art, when it was still possible. Inaccessability of Balthus the person has allowed only a small circle of friends, family members, and patrons to benefit financially, and socially from Balthus's name and Art, however Mr.Weber, a parvenue as he is, craved for some of it too. The result - is this book, a book about infiltrating oneself ( or trying to) into a privileged society of artists, aristocrats, wealthy collectors, celebs etc. and then - just " telling all" about who they really are: pretenders, liers, perverts and above all - anti-Semites... I only regret three thing about this book: That I have spent money to buy it ( so contributing to the cause of Mr.Weber); that I have read this book ; that we have all here read this book. PS: To my knowledge, there is not a single Novgorod near Pinsk, or anywhere in Belarus, and Mr.Weber was probably alluding to Novogrudok ( Nowogrodek, Navahrudak) about 125km from Minsk. (Weber might have thought that throwing in some obscure town names from Eastern Europe and ambelishing that book with them would make his "research" look more professional)
Rating: 5
Summary: Capturing Balthus
Comment: This is a superb biography in which the author willingly submits to a cat and mouse game with the husband and wife team of Balthus and Setusko, both of whom seem supremely confident that they can seduce and manipulate the biographer into telling only the tale they feel the world deserves. Like a good psychoanalyst, Weber allows himself to be taken in and then slowly works his way back out, transformed, but intact. There are so many layers to this story that it makes sense for Weber to include his own narrative as a way to contain and to bind. Balthus comes across as a wonderful paradox as Weber experiences him as both tender and sadistic, real and unreal. Perhaps Weber's own propensity for sharing unflattering details of many of the people he meets along the way (a woman fondling her breast during an interview; the outrageously tasteless home of a California collector, are examples) is a natural response to the sadism that Balthus, himself, disowns time and time again. Weber engages in many acts of bravado during the writing of this book and toward the end describes an amazing meeting between Balthus and the author's own two young daughters -- they seem to have been raised with a hearty, self-assurance. At no time does one feel that the author's intrusions are gratuitous. He does a wonderful job of illuminating aspects of Balthus' life, thought,and art, and his psychoanalytic riffs on the paintings ring true and are expressed in a down-to-earth manner. Of course, how could one ever get to the heart of the matter when it comes to Balthus? But in the end, Balthus, the trickster, gets respectfully what he deserves. Certainly it might make him wince, but then for the artist who early on loved to shock, turnabout is fair play. Bravo to Nicholas Fox Weber who allows himself to feel toward his subject a complex set of emotions that when examined helps to capture some truths about this complicated artist.
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Title: Balthus by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola, Stanislas Klossowski De Rola, Balthus ISBN: 0810921197 Publisher: Harry N Abrams Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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