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Scraps of Memory
A Review by Adrienne Miller

Here is an abstract, odd and impressionistic memoir from the great form-obsessed classicist. Before his death in 2001, the "reclusive" Balthus (a.k.a. Count Balthazar Klossowski de Rola), the master figurative painter (although Balthus himself detested the term) of the twentieth century, began dictating his life's story. Although, as Balthus says, "I have no real life to write about, only scraps of memory which, when connected, create a woven version of myself." The result is a series of lovely, modest, graceful, profound mediations about life and art. "Time mastered," he says, "isn't that the best definition of art?" The great artist approached his projects with the utmost seriousness: "If one wants to enter into painting and arrive at painting's heart...demands and deliberation must be accepted, but contemporary painters cannot resolve to do so." Indeed, Balthus was decidedly anti-modern, in both work and spirit. "It is better to seek solitude and silence, to be surrounded by past masters, to reinvent the world, not be cradled by false sirens, cash, galleries, fashionable games, etc," he says. Such a sentiment is a right-headed and clarifyingly sane antidote to our times, when no one but no one can seem to just be quiet, disappear, and get to work.

Adrienne Miller is Esquire's literary editor.

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