In many ways, however, the paradoxes and ambiguities of
Balthus's life/work relationship are those that pertain for any artist, and the lengthy obsessing on them in this book borders on the wearying.
The Worksop trainer has a great record in the Cambridgeshire, landing the race with
Balthus, Rambo's Hall (twice) and Clifton Fox, and rates Captain Scott in the same category.
If this literary flowering weren't enough (Byron also wrote part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage during his stay), the villa also appeared in Balzac's 1836 novel Albert Savants and the painter
Balthus lived there briefly in 1945
In Cocaine Nights, for example, the female figure captured as she reclines on a couch recalls pictures by
Balthus and Rousseau, and Akdeniz Graf's work most certainly suggests a similar timelessness and also a comparable poetic stylization.
The Worksop-based trainer landed his first Cambridgeshire with
Balthus in 1987, followed up with Rambo's Hall in 1989 and 1992 and then saddled Clifton Fox to score two years ago.
So, it seems that La Visite was conceived as a scene of sexual intrigue, not dissimilar to
Balthus's painting of the period.
The artist is unapologetic about any perceived nods to Manet, Picasso,
Balthus, or Alex Katz in her use of areas of raw color, manipulation of depth, unconventional cropping, and fusion of simplified abstract forms with recognizable naturalistic imagery.