Balthus Quotes

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

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

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

I had only planned to strike the gong violently in order to somehow shake people up and make them more aware. I think I succeeded.

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

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.

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

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.