Balthus' style is primarily classical and academic. Though his technique and compositions were inspired by pre-renaissance painters, there are also eerie intimations reminiscent of contemporary surrealists like de Chirico. Painting the figure at a time when figurative art was largely ignored, he is widely recognised as an important 20th century artist.

Many of his paintings show young girls in an erotic context. Balthus insisted that his work was not pornographic, but that it just recognized the discomforting facts of children's sexuality.

I'm not incredibly fond of some of his work, but I found it in an art book during class and thought it was interesting to see this theme aside of the contemporary things we see a lot on this comm (though these weren't too early on, from about 1930s)