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The Dream (1)

Painted 1955-6 by Balthus

Balthus is listed in Desmond Morris's 101 Surrealists, but to my mind his work's surreal only in the original sense Picasso meant: surpassing realism, realer than real, baring the truth of things. Picasso felt the Surrealist Movement generally fell short of this; but Balthus sometimes achieves it. His landscapes and interiors are impressionist, but his people have a grotesque, dreamlike intensity, for he uses strong color, shape and gesture to show not their appearance but how they feel to him. The angel bringing a poppy to the dreamer turns almost geometric...

--Chris Wayan

The Dream, by Balthus, painted 1955-6. Click to enlarge.

SOURCE: Balthus by Jean Leymarie (1979), p.84-5


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