午餐

"As Battiss grew older so his work grew bolder, and the oils from his last years are painted in fluid and broad brushstrokes. His portrayal of people was often underscored by elements of eroticism, as can be seen in each of these works. In Girl turning into a woman he has calligraphically sketched the breasts and genitalia of the women against flat planes of colour reflecting the austerity of the Karoo landscape. In Girls on a seashore the naked girls frolic on the sandy strip, and in Le Déjeuner Battiss has transferred Edouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, painted in 1863, from a picnic in a forest on the edge of a pond to an idyllic island setting, and also undressed the seated male figure." (Michael Stevenson)