Balthus Quotes

• Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.

  Balthus

  Order, Emotion, Chaos

  47 Copy quote

• Painting is a language which cannot be replaced by another language. I don't know what to say about what I paint, really.

  Balthus

  Art, Painting, Language

  46 Copy quote

• I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.

  Balthus

  Art, Desire, Ordinary

  38 Copy quote

• Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

  Balthus

  Art, Painting, Pleasure

  25 Copy quote

• One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.

  Balthus

  Eye, Drawing, Sketching

  17 Copy quote

• I refuse to confide and don't like it when people write about art.

  Balthus

  Art, Writing, People

  5 Copy quote

• If you speak of beauty, you are at once suspected of...kitsch.

  Balthus

  Kitsch, Speak, Ifs

  7 Copy quote

• Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

  Balthus

  Struggle, Self, Criticism

  8 Copy quote

• I had only planned to strike the gong violently in order to somehow shake people up and make them more aware. I think I succeeded.

  Balthus

  Thinking, Order, People

  5 Copy quote

• The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.

  Balthus

  Looks, Crafts, Painting

  8 Copy quote

• The best way to begin is to say: 'Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. And now let us have a look at the paintings'.

  Balthus

  Looks, Way, Painting

  "Balthus: a retrospective exhibition".

  5 Copy quote

• I will always find even the worst paintings that attempt some kind of representation better than the best invented paintings.

  Balthus

  Painting, Kind, Worst

  5 Copy quote

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