Balthus Exhibition in Rome Explores Eros and Cruelty

A major exhibition at Scuderie del Quirinale and Villa Medici in Rome examines the work of Balthus, focusing on his relationship with Antonin Artaud. The show runs until January 31 and includes works from the artist's youth to maturity, with thematic sections and cross-references to other artists such as Pierre Klossowski, Lewis Carroll, André Derain, Piero della Francesca, and Alberto Giacometti. Balthus designed sets and costumes for Artaud's play "I Cenci" in 1935, and sketches for this production are on display. The exhibition highlights Balthus's violent, tormented painting style, where violence is never explicit but infused with melancholy, transforming perversion into something ancient and sacred. His girls are depicted as static, ambiguous, sensual yet denying, making the ordinary monstrous. Artaud described Balthus's work as rediscovering a mysterious tradition beyond surrealism and academic classicism, mixing order with darkness, classicism with the unexpected, and rigor with pathos.