Art Museum Paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Art Museum - Research Paper ExampleHe is considered a modern artist, which means that he belongs to the era that roughly extended from the 1980s to the 1970s, and of a movement that is characterized by a tendency towards experimentation and abstraction (Cahoone). However, despite the undeniable fact that his work was fresh and thought provoking, he shied away from creating abstract artwork, and stuck to the classical technique of oil painting. His paintings were composed and crisp, marked with the influence of the realist painter Gustave Courbet. With superficial examination one might declare that on that point is nothing modern about Balthus work. However, there is an indisputable air of strangeness to his work. This strangeness that strikes many as close to disturbing is felt not done the style of painting but rather it was within his depictions and subjects that he displayed his modernism.Balthus art is marked with his fascination for the uninnocent sexuality of adolescent gir ls. Most of his work feature teenaged women in an ordinary setting, but they are shown as naked, or are shown in contorted and suggestive positions. While the artist himself insists that there is no gene of sexual provocation in his work (Cahoone), it is difficult to deny the stimulating and sexual nature of most of his work. An example of this would be the oil painting Guitar Lesson which was make in 1934. While the title brings to mind an almost domestic scene, the actual painting depicts a young woman half naked with her skirt pulled almost to her waist exposing her bare private parts while she lies across her music instructors lap in place of a guitar. Her music instructor, who is a middle aged woman, holds her much as she would hold a guitar, with her right hand clutching the young womans hair and the left hand covetous her students inner thigh provocatively close to her