The Guitar Lesson
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Guitar Lesson [1] is a 1934 painting by Balthus. It caused controversy in the 1970s due to its depiction of a sexually explicit lesbian scene featuring a young girl and her teacher. The painting debuted at Gallerie Pierre in Paris in 1934 at Balthus's premiere solo exhibition and even then it was hung in a back room where it was concealed behind a curtain. The exposition was reviewed by Antonin Artaud in "La Nouvelle Revue française" 22, no. 248 of May 1934.
The composition is based on a Pietà, probably the Louvre's mid-15th-century Pieta of Villeneuve-les-Avignons, to judge from the near identical height and comparable sizes of the figures.
The work was lovingly re-interpreted by Japanese photographer Naoto Kawahara in 2007 [2].
External links
- Balthus lessons. (five controversial works by the French artist) by Sabine Rewald
- Image at Wikipedia