Aesthetically Unfamiliar

This thesis focuses on Balthus’s paintings. Due to his unique artistic expression, this modernism figurative master’s portrayal of people and objects in real life is distinct from other schools of art. By unfamiliarizing things that we are familiar with, Balthus takes the audience into a spiritual world away from reality. The theme is expressed through Art Form rather than reproduction of reality. This "defamiliarization" art form awakens people who live in an unconscious environment.Roger Fry developed the theoretical framework of formalism-modernism criticism, defended modernism. He emphasizes the "form" value.Clive Bell proposed "significant form" theory in which he advocates that for all visual arts, provocation of aesthetic emotions is achieved through careful combinations of lines, colors, as well as their relationships. In "shock" aesthetics, Benjamin gradually transformed traditional "Aura" art form into modern "shock" art in which viewers experience visual shock in advance provided by this special art form. Defamiliarization theory was proposed by Viktor Shklovsky.The theory is based on creating visual experience in art and literature through "defamiliarizing" people who unconsciously entered the state of "automation" for things they are familiar with. Analysis of Art Form, colors, and structures in his paintings shows that Balthus elicits inner spiritual feelings from his viewers by expressing composition, characters, and attitudes in "significant form".In studying Balthus’s paintings and observing everything from my own perspective, I gradually developed my own form of defamiliarization in the process of graduate design by rethinking the ordinary, which are explained from aspects of Art Form, colors, and composition. My work represents my attempt to bring audience into a non-pictorial, inner spiritual world that I meticulously created.