Interesting! I don't believe it is a genre in English, and not sure it is in French either? I've never heard or seen of it (nor of "circumstantial painting" /"occasional painting" either).

Here the text is about the (lack of) "récit" of a portrait being contrasted with historical painting (i.e. that depicts some historical occasion and thus is a récit) or a peinture de circonstance, (showcasing/depicting the circumstances) as in "la peinture de Balthus".

So certainly Baltus' painting are not portraits with very little récit but rather incite all sorts of questions and controversies about the models (especially the adolescent girls depicted in very erotic ways) and the stories or récits portrayed.

So I think that is the angle to take here. I really don't think you can come up with a 2 word equivalent in English that will work.

So I'd suggest going with the récit/story aspect. Some thing like

"Dans un portrait, il y a très peu de récit, mais tu finis quand même par raconter quelque chose sur l’être humain,... comme par exemple la peinture de Balthus"

There is very little narrative/story-telling in portrait painting but nevertheless you finish by saying something about the human being (portrayed), like in a historical painting or the occasions and stories that a Balthus painting may showcase/depict/give rise to

WordReference has a few threads on the term (including one started by you I see) but I like the "showcase" of the film one though I wouldn't say "showcase art" either.
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/film-de-circonstance...

I thought of "commemorative" as well and certainly portraits are often commisioned and painted to commemorate occasions but I don't think this can be associated with Balthus though of course the portrait in question may well be!

I thought of "opportunistic art" too, i.e. the artist seizing the opportunity to paint what they see, but again, I don't really see how this would relate to Balthus who certainly "staged" his work

so, difficult to say but I have a feeling the Balthus ref. is a bit of a red herring. After all, this is an artist who refused to give any biographical details or allow these details or descriptions of his works to be shown! It was up to the spectator to decide on the narrative/récit to take from each painting

Hope my thinking aloud has helped!



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Note added at 1 hr (2019-11-27 19:50:46 GMT)
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oops! I meant to highlight/bold some words that may be useful like the occasions and stories that a Balthus painting may showcase/depict/give rise to
or other words like narrate, showcase, commemorative (commissioned and painted to commemorate occasions), opportunistic

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Note added at 1 hr (2019-11-27 19:54:40 GMT)
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BTW it's important to have a look at a definition of "circumstantial" to see why it won't work https://www.dictionary.com/browse/circumstantial

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Note added at 1 day 17 hrs (2019-11-29 11:21:42 GMT) Post-grading
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Glad to have helped. I think it's very difficult to categorise Balthus or try to pigeonhole him. Certainly, he can be seen as a modern genre painter but his paintings also fit into the modern genre or narrative art category which seems to be what the context is about here.
I'd normally agree with Helen but personally I would not see his works as "satirical" and also would not slot him into a "moral painter" pigeonhole.
So, I'd probably work around it rather than settling on one category as I suggested earlier

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Note added at 1 day 17 hrs (2019-11-29 11:25:30 GMT) Post-grading
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But for the purposes of the glossary I'll change the header