Quotes from Balthus

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

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

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 his paintings.

Very early on, I understood that I secretly and mysteriously belonged to the world of cats.

One day in Rome, I found a little cat in the Villa Medicis gardens. He seemed completely inoffensive, but caused an incredible mess at Chassy by turning out to be tyrannical and nasty. He never let any of the other cats eat, and fought with all of them.

Personality cults by contemporary painters infuriate me. One must seek the opposite, fade away more every day, and find exactingness only in the act of painting, and always forget oneself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'.

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.

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.

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