Fernando Botero (Medellín, 1932). Loved unconditionally by most of the public,
The extreme recognition of his works is due to his unmistakable style, based on the use of the so-called “dilated forms” which give life to the famous “fat figures”
But when and how did you start drawing out-of-dimension figures?
1956, Botero, at the age of 24, did not apply his “dilatation” to a living being, but to an object: to be exact, a mandolin.
The artist was depicting the resonance hole of the instrument in decidedly smaller proportions than normal, with the consequence that the mandolin was much more squat and enlarged compared to a real mandolin.
After having therefore “dilated” the mandolin, Botero found in the drawing, a sort of sensuality, which in fact gave way to his style of dilating the shapes of other objects, animals, human beings. associating your “oversized” subjects with pleasure, with the exaltation of life, because abundance communicates positivity, vitality, energy, desire.
Botero is a figurative painter, but he certainly cannot be defined as a realist painter, his figures, in fact, although decisively anchored to reality and everyday life, do not represent her in the veracity of the proportions.
However, although Fernando Botero is considered a sort of icon of contemporary art, recognizable like the greatest artists ever, from Raphael to Warhol via Giotto and Picasso, this has not preserved him from strong criticisms from the art world. For example In a 2011 article published in the Art in America Magazine, the critic Charmaine Picard dismissed the creations of the Colombian artist, stating that Botero’s works show simplistic caricatures of flesh-like figures, inserted in sunny familiar contexts “.Here you can find the italian version of this article -> Fernando Botero
But when and how did you start drawing out-of-dimension figures?
1956, Botero, at the age of 24, did not apply his “dilatation” to a living being, but to an object: to be exact, a mandolin.
The artist was depicting the resonance hole of the instrument in decidedly smaller proportions than normal, with the consequence that the mandolin was much more squat and enlarged compared to a real mandolin.
After having therefore “dilated” the mandolin, Botero found in the drawing, a sort of sensuality, which in fact gave way to his style of dilating the shapes of other objects, animals, human beings. associating your “oversized” subjects with pleasure, with the exaltation of life, because abundance communicates positivity, vitality, energy, desire.
Botero is a figurative painter, but he certainly cannot be defined as a realist painter, his figures, in fact, although decisively anchored to reality and everyday life, do not represent her in the veracity of the proportions.
However, although Fernando Botero is considered a sort of icon of contemporary art, recognizable like the greatest artists ever, from Raphael to Warhol via Giotto and Picasso, this has not preserved him from strong criticisms from the art world. For example In a 2011 article published in the Art in America Magazine, the critic Charmaine Picard dismissed the creations of the Colombian artist, stating that Botero’s works show simplistic caricatures of flesh-like figures, inserted in sunny familiar contexts “.Here you can find the italian version of this article -> Fernando Botero