The white skirt 1937

Curator: Balthus's "The White Skirt," painted in 1937, presents an unsettling and ambiguous scene. Editor: There's a striking languor about the composition, isn't there? The pale palette amplifies the subdued, almost melancholic mood emanating from the figure. Curator: The oil paint itself contributes. It’s thickly applied in some areas, giving a tactile quality to the fabrics and the sitter's flesh, contrasting with the flatter background. Editor: Note how the material of the skirt, the way it pools and folds, is so central to the work. It guides our eye, creating rhythm within the stillness. And yet the dishevelment also suggests a certain disruption, doesn’t it? The open shirt, the slip… Curator: These are elements that directly speak to Balthus's manipulation of his models; they're never active agents in the scene, but subjects of the painter's gaze and control. Consider the economic reality – likely a young woman employed to sit for an older male painter, within the societal norms that facilitated this unequal power dynamic. The labour is hidden but crucial. Editor: Yes, there is a very visible push and pull between the real and the posed, what is revealed and what is hidden. Balthus is masterful with composition and his approach to color which reinforces that unease; her shadowed face, that peculiar curtain in the background. There is such attention to line and tonal gradation. Curator: Exactly! And the tension of our time in consuming Balthus’s art resides in how he constructed his subjects to produce desire. His process of controlling the conditions of labor involved staging often very young female bodies in varying degrees of dress. Editor: Still, even acknowledging all of that, one cannot dismiss the sophisticated orchestration of the formal elements, the ways in which Balthus constructed and resolved the problems of depicting volume and space. Curator: I agree; Balthus offers fertile ground for discussions about labour, visibility, and power. Editor: Ultimately, viewing art like "The White Skirt" today is a complex, challenging endeavor.