Summertime
This mountainscape evokes places from Balthus’s youth, but is made up of transformed and invented elements. The plateau on which the girl rests is imaginary but is set on the Niederhorn in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. The mountain on the left, the Sigriswiler Rothorn, abruptly appears above a valley that is not seen but that has been compressed. Beatenberg, where the artist spent his summers as a youth, would lie far below. Balthus transformed the bucolic scene into personal allegory in The Mountain, which was acquired by The Met in 1982 (1982.530).
Artwork Details
- Title: Summertime
- Artist: Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) (French, Paris 1908–2001 Rossinière)
- Date: 1935
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 23 5/8 x 28 3/4 in. (60 x 73 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Purchase, Gift of Himan Brown, by exchange, 1996
- Object Number: 1996.176
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski)
1936–37
Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski)
1957
Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski)
1932–33
Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski)
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Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski)
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