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A Balthus Notebook
Suggests interpretations of paintings by the controversial modern artist, and discusses the influence of Rilke and Picasso on his work
90 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 8, 2014
Guy Davenport is one of my favorite writers, though I don’t know why. Typically my favorite writers are those with whom I have a shared sensibility, so that by reading them I am reading myself, or rather my future or potential self. Davenport is different. Our sensibilities are at odds, and he is a pedant while I am not. Perhaps what keeps him tightly within my readerly orbit is that I view him as the professor I never had. I do not necessarily like him, but by attending him I learn, and so I keep attending him.
But still while reading him I am ever on the look-out for why exactly I am conflicted about someone I consider one of my favorite writers, since even the writing itself does not give me the kind of pleasure I typically look for. I tell myself that it is his mind that attracts me, and not his writing, and this may be true, but still I fall back on my old reliable reason of his being the professor I never had and that by continuing to read him I am learning – of new artists, of new writers, of new ways of viewing our cultural history.
So I keep reading Guy Davenport, and collecting 1st edition hardbacks of his books, and learning.
A Balthus Notebook is the latest addition to my Davenport collection. I had long disregarded this book, as I have long known that Pavel Tchelitchew’s painting Hide and Seek is a favorite painting of his, while I have a palpable aversion to it, and in fact it has come to represent a type of art I resolutely do not like – a kind of virtuosic “puzzle painting” - but I will not discuss this painting here. Suffice it to say that I have long intuited that painting (and poetry for that matter) is where Davenport and I diverge, and so I stayed away from this book, though (or perhaps because?) I like Balthus very much, for fear it would drive a wedge between us and I would lose my favorite professor and would have to unload my sizeable Davenport collection.
But on a whim, or during a moment of forgetfulness, I recently ordered it. It is a lovely little book with a fine reproduction of one of Balthus’ landscapes on the cover. It also has a nice later-in-life photograph of Davenport on the back leaf prominently featuring his thick dark eyebrows and the big mole on his cheek.
I read it through twice the day I got it. The second time was to verify the “aha!” moment I experienced upon reading this:
A work of art, like a foreign language, is closed to us until we learn how to read it. Meaning is latent, seemingly hidden. There is also the illusion that meaning is concealed. A work of art is a structure of signs, each meaningful. It follows that a work of art has one meaning only. For an explicator to blue an artist’s meaning, or to be blind to his achievement, is a kind of treason, a betrayal. The arrogance of insisting that a work of art means what you think it means is a mistake that closes off curiosity, perception, the adventure of discovery.
“This is it!” I told myself. “This expresses as succinctly as possible the fundamental difference between me and Davenport.” It follows that a work of art has one meaning only. My God how that makes me bristle! I have spent my life experiencing and re-experiencing art that has as many meanings as possible, that cannot be reduced to a single meaning. I, in fact, feel death pass through me when a work of art is fully and completely explicated. I want, even need, uncertainty, shiftinees, mercuriality, made up things with no known meaning! All it need do is engage and intrigue me and keep me coming back.
So I felt great having hit on this excerpt that seemed to clarify so much, but wait… what exactly does Davenport mean here? In another section of this book he offers an explication of one of Balthus’ canvasses that is so detailed it could pass for speculative craziness, even as he says (in another part) that he does not know what Balthus’ intentions were.
So what exactly does Davenport mean in the aha! Excerpt above? He means that though there is a single meaning to true works of art we don’t necessarily know what that meaning is, only that it is there; which, in the end, is consistent with what I look for in much art. I do not need to know what the meaning is, only that the artist knew exactly what he/she was doing. Though, for me, this “meaning” is not necessarily capable of being put into words, and often to do so is to ruin the possibilities for the experience I am looking for. The “meaning” can be simply an embodiment of the artist’s specific sensibility and learning and approach, as expressed through whichever medium – paint, music, even words - which for me equates to simply trusting the artist’s intentions, capabilities, and internal rigorousness.
So thanks, Guy, for keeping our uncertain, mercurial, and shifty relationship alive. That is what I was looking for all along.
But still while reading him I am ever on the look-out for why exactly I am conflicted about someone I consider one of my favorite writers, since even the writing itself does not give me the kind of pleasure I typically look for. I tell myself that it is his mind that attracts me, and not his writing, and this may be true, but still I fall back on my old reliable reason of his being the professor I never had and that by continuing to read him I am learning – of new artists, of new writers, of new ways of viewing our cultural history.
So I keep reading Guy Davenport, and collecting 1st edition hardbacks of his books, and learning.
A Balthus Notebook is the latest addition to my Davenport collection. I had long disregarded this book, as I have long known that Pavel Tchelitchew’s painting Hide and Seek is a favorite painting of his, while I have a palpable aversion to it, and in fact it has come to represent a type of art I resolutely do not like – a kind of virtuosic “puzzle painting” - but I will not discuss this painting here. Suffice it to say that I have long intuited that painting (and poetry for that matter) is where Davenport and I diverge, and so I stayed away from this book, though (or perhaps because?) I like Balthus very much, for fear it would drive a wedge between us and I would lose my favorite professor and would have to unload my sizeable Davenport collection.
But on a whim, or during a moment of forgetfulness, I recently ordered it. It is a lovely little book with a fine reproduction of one of Balthus’ landscapes on the cover. It also has a nice later-in-life photograph of Davenport on the back leaf prominently featuring his thick dark eyebrows and the big mole on his cheek.
I read it through twice the day I got it. The second time was to verify the “aha!” moment I experienced upon reading this:
A work of art, like a foreign language, is closed to us until we learn how to read it. Meaning is latent, seemingly hidden. There is also the illusion that meaning is concealed. A work of art is a structure of signs, each meaningful. It follows that a work of art has one meaning only. For an explicator to blue an artist’s meaning, or to be blind to his achievement, is a kind of treason, a betrayal. The arrogance of insisting that a work of art means what you think it means is a mistake that closes off curiosity, perception, the adventure of discovery.
“This is it!” I told myself. “This expresses as succinctly as possible the fundamental difference between me and Davenport.” It follows that a work of art has one meaning only. My God how that makes me bristle! I have spent my life experiencing and re-experiencing art that has as many meanings as possible, that cannot be reduced to a single meaning. I, in fact, feel death pass through me when a work of art is fully and completely explicated. I want, even need, uncertainty, shiftinees, mercuriality, made up things with no known meaning! All it need do is engage and intrigue me and keep me coming back.
So I felt great having hit on this excerpt that seemed to clarify so much, but wait… what exactly does Davenport mean here? In another section of this book he offers an explication of one of Balthus’ canvasses that is so detailed it could pass for speculative craziness, even as he says (in another part) that he does not know what Balthus’ intentions were.
So what exactly does Davenport mean in the aha! Excerpt above? He means that though there is a single meaning to true works of art we don’t necessarily know what that meaning is, only that it is there; which, in the end, is consistent with what I look for in much art. I do not need to know what the meaning is, only that the artist knew exactly what he/she was doing. Though, for me, this “meaning” is not necessarily capable of being put into words, and often to do so is to ruin the possibilities for the experience I am looking for. The “meaning” can be simply an embodiment of the artist’s specific sensibility and learning and approach, as expressed through whichever medium – paint, music, even words - which for me equates to simply trusting the artist’s intentions, capabilities, and internal rigorousness.
So thanks, Guy, for keeping our uncertain, mercurial, and shifty relationship alive. That is what I was looking for all along.
November 4, 2009
This is the way most art writing should be done, I think. Since good artwork itself can never be explained, the best way to approach it is epigrammatically, associatively, with tangential connections and thoughts that lead in, through and out of the work but never try to capture or surround it. (I'm pretty sure I made up a couple words there. Sorry about that.)
That being said, Davenport is a smarty pants literary history type of writer whose readings tend to be symbolic and narrative and not visual. He doesn't have a lot to say about Balthus's style or painting sense, but he can spin off thoughts connecting Balthus to French theater, Greek philosophers, and the Bible. In one paragraph, he drops the names of Henry de Montherlant, Pyrrhon of Elis, Anacreon, Regulus, Rilke, Courbet, Proust, Bronte, Vermeer, Colette, Morandi, Utamaro, and Hogarth. The fact that I could only recognize half those names made it a challenge to follow Davenport's thinking. But in the age of Google, I was so happy to learn about Pyrrhon of Elis!
The book is short and can be read in an afternoon, but will reward returning to it and just taking nibbles every now and then. Here's a sample of the book's flavor:
That being said, Davenport is a smarty pants literary history type of writer whose readings tend to be symbolic and narrative and not visual. He doesn't have a lot to say about Balthus's style or painting sense, but he can spin off thoughts connecting Balthus to French theater, Greek philosophers, and the Bible. In one paragraph, he drops the names of Henry de Montherlant, Pyrrhon of Elis, Anacreon, Regulus, Rilke, Courbet, Proust, Bronte, Vermeer, Colette, Morandi, Utamaro, and Hogarth. The fact that I could only recognize half those names made it a challenge to follow Davenport's thinking. But in the age of Google, I was so happy to learn about Pyrrhon of Elis!
The book is short and can be read in an afternoon, but will reward returning to it and just taking nibbles every now and then. Here's a sample of the book's flavor:
Centuries before Plato beauty was a kind of good, and the appreciation of it a pleasure. Beauty has also traditionally been an outward sign of the soul's beauty. Balthus integrates this ancient tradition with Darwinian naturalism (beauty as sexual attraction). Darwin suspected that there was always "something left over" after sexual attractiveness has done its work, and that this something was what we call beauty, and that it may have given rise to art. The grace of line in a Lascaux horse is not the horse, but something that has been abstracted from it.
August 29, 2025
Hello everyone,
There is an unaired curb your enthusiasm sketch where he is at a dinner party and doesn’t want someone’s kid sitting on his lap. The parents protest.
“So what, why won't you let my kid sit on your lap Larry? They’ve taken a liking to you.”
“No offence to your kid, but they just aren’t my type.”
“They aren’t your type?! So what kid is your type? What are you trying to say here.”
“Kids are not my type, I never said kids were my type! I’m not attracted to kids and that’s just the way it is!”
Later he is at a museum and the same parents run into him staring at a Balthus.
"So this is why you won’t let my kid sit on your lap Larry?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you get off or something?"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
"You enjoy Balthus, you were staring at that Therese Dreaming painting. I just saw you."
"It reminded me of when I daydreamed after school, what the hell are you talking about?!"
"You never wore a skirt."
"Yeah, but I daydreamed."
"Yeah? About looking up little girl’s skirts!"
There is an unaired curb your enthusiasm sketch where he is at a dinner party and doesn’t want someone’s kid sitting on his lap. The parents protest.
“So what, why won't you let my kid sit on your lap Larry? They’ve taken a liking to you.”
“No offence to your kid, but they just aren’t my type.”
“They aren’t your type?! So what kid is your type? What are you trying to say here.”
“Kids are not my type, I never said kids were my type! I’m not attracted to kids and that’s just the way it is!”
Later he is at a museum and the same parents run into him staring at a Balthus.
"So this is why you won’t let my kid sit on your lap Larry?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you get off or something?"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
"You enjoy Balthus, you were staring at that Therese Dreaming painting. I just saw you."
"It reminded me of when I daydreamed after school, what the hell are you talking about?!"
"You never wore a skirt."
"Yeah, but I daydreamed."
"Yeah? About looking up little girl’s skirts!"
Read
July 25, 2025It feels like such a shame that with how prolific Guy Davenport was so much of his work is hard to come by. But this was a wonderful introduction. While I am passingly familiar with Balthus as an artist (and his controversial subject matter) reading Davenport gave me somewhat more of a thoughtful examination. As the afterword so succinctly put it, Davenport is incredibly knowledgeable about so many things, he is able to draw from an endless well of sources to make new connections and flesh out new ideas. Rainer Maria Rilke was mentioned enough that I must read him now. Some people I was familiar with their work, but a handful of others I wasn't.
It's interesting to read this book as well, written in the eighties when people even then were a bit troubled by some of Balthus's subject matter. Davenport (and even Judith Thurman who wrote the introduction) try to preemptively stop criticism by describing how his subjects seemed to represent something for him. This is something I don't know if I necessarily believe. Overall the book was enjoyable.
It's interesting to read this book as well, written in the eighties when people even then were a bit troubled by some of Balthus's subject matter. Davenport (and even Judith Thurman who wrote the introduction) try to preemptively stop criticism by describing how his subjects seemed to represent something for him. This is something I don't know if I necessarily believe. Overall the book was enjoyable.
January 17, 2025
Some of these fragments fail (or refuse) to coalesce, but I’m not really complaining. Love Davenport, love spending time with him in his writing, and also love Balthus: a much misunderstood and dare I say basically neglected (now) painter who I don’t think is really nearly as antipathetic to modernist painting as he’s made out to be (Davenport strengthens this view imo)
November 26, 2023
Whole cultures rise and fall in this slim little volume of extraordinary art criticism.
March 23, 2014
A wonderful collection of observations.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews