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Introduction
This essay focuses on Nude in Front of a Mantel by a Polish-French modern artist Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski), painted in 1955. The painting depicts a naked woman – the artist’s lifelong subject – making her hair standing in front of a mirror in a brightly lit room. The artist uses bright pastel tones, a combination of straight and curved lines, and a simple one-point perspective, accentuating the nude figure and creating a feeling of the viewer’s presence in the scene. The work represents different techniques characteristic of the modern art period to evoke a dream-like atmosphere of unreality.
Space
The work utilizes a one-point perspective, with the eye level cutting the nude figure precisely in half and the vanishing point marked in the center of the picture. Only a few separate elements occupy the visual space: a massive mantel, a modest mirror, a decanter, and a naked woman. While the first three elements merge as if in a single object, the woman stands separately, dominating the scene, occupying nearly a third of the visual space and immediately drawing attention. The viewer observes the woman from the left side, a few feet away, as if sitting. The woman’s eyes are hidden in a soft shadow, but a subtle smile and somewhat tense posture suggest her awareness of the viewer’s presence. Only a few individual elements of the woman’s body are visible, still being partially conceived, as if emphasizing her innocence and purity. All of it creates a slightly unsettling yet intriguing atmosphere of voyeurism.
Line and Shape
The picture’s background and furniture elements combine mostly straight vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, creating an image of rigidity and solidity. Their simplistic forms – the decanter easily divisible into a trapeze and a triangle, the rectangular mirror, and a combination of circles and rectangles in the background – are contrasted by the woman’s figure. While stretched along a straight vertical axis, it comprises soft and flowing curved lines circumscribing her body continuously. The woman’s hieratic stance turned strictly perpendicular to the viewer with a straightened back, one leg put in front of the other, and one arm bent at a right angle, which is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian frieze.
Light
The bright white light fills the scene, washing away the blues, greys, and golden of the interior and emphasizing the contours. The figures and the background are almost devoid of shadows, barely retaining three-dimensionality. The shadows behind and in the mirror and inside the mantel harmonize with the woman’s dark hair, simultaneously contrasting the rigidity of the former with the fluidity of the latter.
Color, Surface, and Texture
The nude model is bathed in soft lighting from behind, almost rendered flat due to the uniformity of the skin color. The clear pastel tones of the nude’s body evoke feelings of softness and tenderness, while the hair’s deep brown creates an almost tangible sensation of thickness and strength. The faded and chill tones of the surroundings harmonize with the woman’s skin, emphasizing the nearly sterile cleanliness of the scene and the naked model’s chastity. The white marble mantel, the simple sky-blue decanter, and the golden-framed mirror all reduced to dominant colors almost attain the quality of a flat sketch.
Conclusion
Balthus’ Nude in Front of a Mantel (Klossowski) is representative of ideas and techniques typical for modern art. The bright lighting smoothes out the textures, almost rendering the scene flat. The use of pastel whites, blues, and golden tones gives the whole scene the semblance of unreality and a dream-like quality reminiscent of the notable works by van Gogh and Cézanne. The eclectic combination of straight lines in some objects and flowing curves in others further intensifies the feeling. The nude figure’s pose brings to mind ancient frescos, similar to the works of Picasso and Gauguin. A masterful combination of multiple approaches typical for modern painting makes Nude in Front of a Mantel (Klossowski) a unique and admirable representative of that period.
Works Cited
Klossowski, Balthazar. Nude in Front of a Mantel. 1955. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Met, Web.
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