Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Images are beautiful bright and vivid. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Color is also the main tool of composition. Different tones of yellow place enlivening accents on the far left in the bright squares ares on the box used to mark the artist’s signature. And a fuller golden yellow on the far right on the outside of the little stepladder offsets both the glowing orange of the inside of one of its vertical supports and the brighter light-touched front of both supports as well as the top. The greenish side of things meanwhile also traverses the entire field. Its dominant portion appears on the upper left of the wall descending to the chair whose curved legs contrast with the browner straight chair in the center and onto the girl’s skirt. None of these surfaces are evenly green; the color is modulated according to shape light and volume. The skirt for example is brighter or darker according to the way the girl’s body fills the wide garment which is otherwise rather shapeless. The far right picks up the accent in the milk pail. Here the sheen on the metal is responsible for the modulation of color. Such nuances of color as we see in this picture are indicative of the artist’s deep commitment to the craft of painting. His entire oeuvre could be considered from the perspective of color only and in this sense it could even be treated as abstract disregarding the figures and the fantasies the architectures and the landscapes the furniture and the earthenware pots the fruits and the fabrics. It is with color that Balthus creates all these contents. But not color alone. Texture is a great aid in giving color its vivacity. Some of the colors emerge from superimpositions of layers of paint and glaze. At times the canvas comes through and often the paint is made coarse by means of the addition of sand or other granular substances as in the case of Le Peintre et son mod?le. The rough surface harmonizes with the kind of colors the mute old-looking cool colors that manage with the help of soft light to produce an ambiance much warmer than the palette would suggest (MP)