Study of a girl with a window 

Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, known as Balthus, made this watercolor titled 'Study of a girl with a window.' Balthus was a French-Polish modern artist who rejected much of modernism. Considered alongside his other work, this study reflects the artist’s interest in adolescence. His images often focused on children and young women in ways that challenge the viewer. Balthus made these images in a twentieth-century context in which sexuality was becoming a more open topic in art and culture. What makes the image provocative is how it draws on established traditions of portraiture to picture the artist's young models. In other paintings, Balthus placed children in domestic scenes that toy with suggestions of adult sexuality. The visual codes used to signal innocence in art historical painting, like a girl by a window, appear to be disrupted and challenged. Understanding his work depends on understanding both his artistic milieu and the traditions of art that he engages with.