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What a strange stiff portrait. Does it have a meaning, or is it just stylized? Is this typical of Bathus’ techniques?
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To the right of the picture facing off the piano?
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¿Que’?
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Sort of like a ghostly image or do I need to wear my glasses?
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I can see that ghostly image, too, but had assumed it was [water?] damage, or an artifact created by the reproduction method. I’ll look at it for a while. Maybe a little psychic hocus pocus will bring in the meaning. I keep getting messages about the meaning of it all when I least need that answer.
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I looked at it closely and the ghostly images seem to be part of the painting. Other paintings by Balthus show similar ‘blurs’. Many of them seem to be a visual story, but I cannot decipher their meanings. Check this one out:
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Bloody Hell!
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He might just be painting over an older version of this painting (the “ghost” under the girl in the foreground suggests another version of her arm)—he painted a few versions of this (I’m running one tomorrow as tomorrow’s “reader” painting).
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I read that a theory is that the music teacher is playing the student like a guitar. I think he just painted that way and that too much interpretation can spoil the experience. But the composition and drama begs for an interpretation. I also notice that the girl on the floor has her posterior redone — probably because of composition. biblioklept seems to be right in that the ghost images are probably where he repainted the canvas. It’s like the Mona Lisa – maybe the artist just wearied of the somber and the religious. Art is great because it stimulates the imagination, including free associating about the work. I like Balthus because he refused to provide the Tate with a biography, stating in effect, ‘forget the filler, look at my art’.
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