Page 31 - PROTAGONIST 132

On the right, Fernando Botero in his studio in Pietra Santa, Italy, 1995.
©Catherine Panchout/Corbis/Getty Images

“They say that those who are liked case. These overflowing shapes are a ishment that is not of this Earth, but is
by too many do not do good things, but tribute to desire. There is brazen atti- that of tales, of stories passed down,
I have never tried to conform, I have tude in all this abundance and we are of traditions.
my own very precise vision... I have infected by it. Although in the artworks of his early
believed in my message and, even It doesn’t matter whether it’s in maturity, the tacit comedy of certain
more, in my vision.” (Fernando Botero in the voluptuous dancer engaged in a figures is accompanied by a hint of
an interview with Roberta Scorranese performance in the mirror, one leg social criticism, intuitable perhaps only
in Corriere della Sera on May 6, 2017) raised and the other balancing on the in the watermark, the magical harmony
tip of her toe, or whether the same that envelops them and bewitches us
“Too many people like it,” too many Junoesque woman dances swirling is not cracked.
people like Botero. So I wonder: is desire with her mustachioed lover. It doesn’t Yes, too many people like it, and it
a sin? A temptation? Even a demonic matter whether it is a fat mandolin, is great that way, because those who
exhibition? No! Not at all! On the satisfied that he has just played his want control to win over imagination
contrary, it is a celebration of Creation, most beautiful song, or the laid table will never be right; those who want
of beauty, of wonder. “Too many people where, under the enamored gaze of beauty and art to respond to a
like it”... is stated, incomprehensibly, as his wife indulging in a cigarette, the predefined formula cannot win. “We
if it were an obstacle to be removed, husband grazed by the picnic falls are such stuff as dreams are made
a problem to be solved. But if there is asleep. I say it doesn’t matter be- on” wrote Shakespeare, and Botero’s
a provocation, it will not be found with cause everything tells us, however, of a characters dream a great deal and
this indication. The scandal is that fantastic world; a universe in which to do it so much that they swell up like
beauty never leaves us as it found us: inhabit is a game we long to join. The the beautiful balloons of the sweetest
it changes us, transforms us, more gazes of the characters seem to invite parties; colorful and round they expand
than anything else it confronts us with us with them, incredulous not to see us without ever bursting, exaggerated and
something to be measured against. there yet, surprised to observe us hes- full of all the desire we are barely able
For Fernando Botero – a Colom- itantly crossing the threshold between to glimpse.
bian artist who died last year at the our reality and the one invented for us Botero pleases like a good flavor,
age of 91 – this measure becomes by Botero. like a caress, like the starry sky, like
boundless: full, round and welcom- The subjects depicted are simul- the sun dipping into the sea, like the
ing. Sometimes maternal, sometimes taneously placid and dynamic, their things that have always been there.
seductive, it may appear soft to us or vision calming and spurring us on. Too many like it?
it may appear turgid, sensual in any The artist imbues his world with a nour- Soon everyone will.

Protagonist Art 29