18 Quotes by Balthus

Personality cults by contemporary painters infuriate me. One must seek the opposite, fade away more every day, and find exactingness only in the act of painting, and always forget oneself.

One day in Rome, I found a little cat in the Villa Medicis gardens. He seemed completely inoffensive, but caused an incredible mess at Chassy by turning out to be tyrannical and nasty. He never let any of the other cats eat, and fought with all of them.

Very early on, I understood that I secretly and mysteriously belonged to the world of cats.

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

One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.

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

Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.