Fernando Botero’s birth in Medellín, Colombia has led to his mature style of portraiture. According to the artist himself he is “"the most Colombian of Colombian artists." His art reflects the turbulent times in his country when cartels in charge of the illegal drug trades sabotaged the economy and the people within this South American country. Because of his love for his homeland, Botero was emotionally connected to the ruthless war, in which cartels kidnapped or murdered government officials, politicians, law enforcement members, journalists, relatives of officials, or just innocent bystanders. Currently, Botero’s work about Abu Ghraib is also intended to raise awareness and reveal the horrors of prisoner torture and abuse in American prisons in Iraq. Botero’s portraiture reflects his desire to bring awareness on issues people would much rather ignore.
Botero’s childhood and adolescence in Colombia was a time in which his future artistic endeavors were greatly influenced. According to Botero, “The artist’s first twenty years have an enormous visual repercussion on the evolution of his work. It appears that nostalgia for certain moments of his life will come to the fore. One always paints what is best known, and it is rooted in childhood and adolescence. That is the world I paint. I have done nothing else. I have lived in the United States for many years and have never painted a North American subject. I have also spent time in France and Italy, and it has not occurred to me to paint a European landscape or subject” (Baroque, 23). Although Botero left Colombia in 1952 to travel, paint, and live in Europe, he still makes it clear that he is a Colombian artist. He traveled from Barcelona to Florence, Florence to Mexico, and Mexico to New York. Even though these environments influenced his style, he remained greatly influenced by his Colombian spirit.
When a viewer looks at Botero’s artwork the most distinct characteristic of his works is his use of large proportions. One may be puzzled and perplexed by this choice to distort sizes and shapes of subjects, making them appear less socially acceptable. According to Botero, “the purpose of my style is to exalt the volumes, not only because that enlarges the area in which I can apply more color, but also because it conveys the sensuality, the exuberance, the profusion of the form I am searching for.” These pudgy characters continue into his gruesome images creating a puzzling juxtaposition.
Although Botero was not living in Colombia at the time of the extreme drug guerilla warfare and political turmoil (mainly during the 1990’s and on), reports of the atrocities came from Botero’s family and friends that were back in his homeland. Botero’s connection (through his childhood and adolescence) to Colombia allowed him to translate his emotions in striking images that confront the viewer with the realities of a violent society. In his paintings, there is “no glorification or heroism but just brutal atrocities in the open air, executions that had nothing to do with justice…acts of violence only to impose terror and fear on innocent citizens who have to witness violent death as a frequent occurrence in daily life”
After looking at some of Botero’s gruesome images, one may ask: what would motivate an artist to capture such horrific scenes? As a Colombian artist, Botero recognizes that there are two sides, or faces, to his homeland—one is the beautiful friendly side, and the other is the terrible, ugly side of violence—both of which must be shown (4). According to Botero, “in view of the magnitude of drama that Colombia is experiencing, there came a moment that I felt a moral obligation to leave a testimony about such an irrational period of our history.” He also has said, “I believe that to do something for our country, you do not have to wait until things get better: instead, there is an urgent need to do something that might perhaps speed up the process of returning to normality….to make a gesture for your country, you should do it now, at this moment, when it most needs it.”
Botero’s current works are in response to 2003 revelations the U.S. guards mistreated Iraqi prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad (5). The set of works is entitled Abu Ghraib and contains numerous untitled gruesome and harsh images of man’s inhumanity to other men. These images, once again, provide the viewer with an inconvenient truth about man’s treatment of fellow men.
Botero’s artwork, especially his portraiture, made to reflect turbulent times in his homeland, speaks volumes about his character as an artist. Botero captured these gruesome images in order to stop the viewers in their tracks, and hit them with the harsh reality of either the warfare in Colombia or the torture in American prisons for Iraqis. Botero provides the viewers with an inconvenient truth in order to capture these times so people can learn from their mistakes and cause stop victimization of the innocent. (image above from: http://prisonphotography.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/fernando-botero.jpg)
Blog Questions (Answer as few or as many as you want)
1. What kind of emotions did you experience when looking at the some of Botero’s gruesome paintings? How did Botero’s juxtaposition between pudgy characters and gruesome images impact you? Do you think he painted these scenes for shock value or in order to record his country’s history?
2. Botero has said: “I am the most Colombian of Colombian artists.” Do you still think Botero is a Colombian artist even though he has not been back to Colombia since the 1960s? What does Botero’s decision to not sell any of the tragic images from his country tell you about his character?
3. What do Botero's paintings about the Abu Ghraib prison tell you about Botero's character? Also look up a news story about the torture in the Abu Ghraib prison and find one of Botero’s paintings that exhibits these heinous acts. After, give a summary of the article and your opinion on the artwork you selected.
Fernando Botero’s choice to depict all of the figures in his portraits as rotund and overweight is an interesting one. Generally, American society rejects and is prejudiced against obese people because they are living representations of self-indulgence. The American dream is to be hard-working and honorable. Obesity is normally correlated with laziness and an inability to do any sort of hard labor or even difficulty with the simplest of tasks, such as climbing a set of stairs. From not only a societal point of view, but a religious one as well, obesity is looked down upon. It could even perhaps be considered a sin, as all of the seven deadly sins grew from the common thread of self-indulgence; lust, greed, gluttony, and sloth just to name a few.
ReplyDeleteBotero is noted in having said that the purpose of his style is, “to exalt the volumes, not only because that enlarges the area in which I can apply more color, but also because it conveys the sensuality, the exuberance, the profusion of the form I am searching for.” Indeed, I believe Botero used the size of these figures to exalt the volumes of the range human emotion. For example, the largeness of his characters is used in The Musicians to convey more of a sense of jolly, silly happiness that perhaps could not have been accomplished with characters of a smaller girth. Conversely, the artist uses the obesity of his characters to better capture the sense of complete hopelessness and helplessness of the prisoners in his Abu Ghraib series. The layers of fat on the prisoners, more readily seen because of their nudity, convey an even greater sense of weakness against the vicious prison dogs and other brutalities set upon them daily. There is nothing romantic about these portraits, and there is no underlying current of sensuality in the prisoners’ bondage. These prisoners’ heavy, larger than life bodies, aid the artist in his intentions of creating this revealing series. Botero wanted to let the world know about the brutalities endured by the prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison, and the build of each character seems to scream, “Here I am! Look at me! Look at what is being done to me!” and most importantly, “Help me!”
Certainly it requires a strong character to paint so many of the horrific scenes that Botero has, but I believe when one truly knows their mission and has a hold on it, the journey is no burden at all. Once one has decided to create portraits of violence, murder, and rape such as Boteros’, however, it takes an interesting and clever mind to decide on the most effective way to portray them so as to evoke as much thought and empathy as possible, and then to achieve the highest goal, to call humanity to action.
Botero's gruesome paintings of gang violence and prison abuses are undeniably disturbing. The people committing the violent acts appear inhuman—their facial expressions range from animal-like rage to complete emotionless detachment. In some of the paintings, the aggressor is not even depicted, as in Massacre, or is only partly shown, like the impersonal hand holding the attack dog's leash. This is a powerful statement about how embracing violence and cruelty can desensitize a person and damage their psyche.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, the expressions on victims' faces are in some instances shocked, horrified, or pleading, and in others, hopeless. In all cases, however, Botero's depictions of victims contain a pathetic emotion that evinces sympathy in the viewer. Botero successfully convinces me that these are tragic events and tragic circumstances that should be stopped or prevented.
However, looking at the Abu Ghraib paintings in particular, I can't help but wonder how many of the victims, days or months earlier, could have been depicted as the person with the machine gun in their hand, or as the rapist. Despite the fact that I know those people were typically detained without a trial and without proof that they even committed any crime at all, and despite the fact that cruel punishments are not justifiable even against cruel criminals, I somehow lack the degree sympathy for the nude men being bitten by dogs, that I feel for the little children pleading for their mother's life. Violence begets violence, and abusiveness begets abusiveness. It's a positive feedback cycle that must be stopped at all points because every act of violence has repercussions that even those involved don't fully realize. The AK-47 wielding gang member, or insurgent destroys families at the rate of 10 bullets a second, and in the process destroys himself. Eventually he ends up in a prison, where he passes the grizzly baton to the guards who hurt themselves as much as they hurt him when they strip him naked, humiliate him, and torture him, possibly to death. News of the abuses reach the gang member's family and friends, and some of them complete the circle by taking up arms for their lost loved one's cause. Though possibly not exactly the message Botero intended to convey, the message his gruesome paintings communicate to me is the desperate need to stop this cycle, and for humanity to completely abandon violence as a means of solving problems.
The use of pudgy characters served two purposes. First of all, Botero was already in the habit of painting these sorts of characters, and there was no real reason for him to paint gruesome scenes with a different style than he painted other scenes. Secondly, his use of pudgy people, and cartoony scenery gives his works an air of cuteness. Despite this, there is nothing cute about his paintings of torture and violence. The inability of his style to lessen the horror of violence emphasizes the idea that these acts cannot be whitewashed—even when viewed through a lens of cuteness they retain their frightening effectiveness.
I think he painted these scenes mostly for shock value and not to record history. It is already well documented that drug wars occur in Columbia and that prisoners were abused in Abu Ghraib, his unrealistic looking paintings do not add any new facts or details. What they do accomplish, hopefully, is shocking people of the present into disapproving of and taking action against the events presented.
When viewing Botero’s more gruesome works, I noticed right away the juxtaposition between Columbian and Salvadoran history. In 2007 I traveled to El Salvador for two weeks after taking a class in my high school to learn about the history of the people and the country. El Salvador has been characterized by civil wars and massacres, similar to the violence present in Columbia. While in El Salvador, we visited the sites of some of these massacres and it was truly heartbreaking to see the plaques for the innocents who were killed during this time. There were memorials to children no more than a few months old; one site had a memorial garden just to commemorate all the children who were killed. The list of names in that garden was hundreds of names long, all of innocent lives cut short. The atrocity of these events really touched my soul and made me wonder at the cruelty of humanity. Moreover, we visited a university where six Jesuit priests and two women were brutally murdered (by American soldiers fighting against “Communist” rebels). At the university were some very vivid actual pictures of the murders in all their gore and inhumanity. Pictures like that just send chills up my spine. So when listening to the presentation on Botero and viewing the graphic paintings, I was reminded of the atrocities I had seen in El Salvador. Columbia too had to deal with violence against the innocents and scenes of man’s inhumanity to man. It astounds me what people will do to each other, and I respect Botero for representing the truth in the way that he did. People need to be aware of what is happening in our world so that we can prevent the same tragedies from occurring in the future. Ultimately, when I viewed Botero’s paintings, I did feel sadness but more than that I felt a sense of injustice and the desire to prevent anything like that from happening again. No human being should have to suffer so much at the hands of other people.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to Botero’s use of the pudgy people, I think this style serves to capture the interest of the viewer because it is atypical of common portrayals of people today. In a society where skinny is beautiful, the pudgy people are an attention grabber and give the artwork a captivating twist that many modern portraits lack. Additionally, I think the pudgy people made it somewhat easier to accept the horrors presented in Botero’s gruesome scenes. The people aren’t quite realistic, rather more like caricatures, therefore making it easier to examine and accept the atrocities occurring. When the viewer can remove the subjects a bit from being actual human beings, the message of the violence can be appreciated rather than winced at. It may just be too much for the viewer to handle if the violence were perpetrated upon extremely realistic beings.
Finally, it seems as though Botero painted the pictures the way he did in order to record his country’s history. He continually claims to be “a Columbian,” so it seems believable that he would paint the violence to record history as his primary agenda. Despite what he may have been aiming for, his pictures certainly do have a significant shock value. The combination of the out-of-proportion characters and the violence definitely gives a “wow” factor for the viewer. The shock factor, whether intended or not, is a good thing though, I believe. It really draws the viewer in and prompts questions as to what the meaning behind the depiction truly is. In the end, Botero’s paintings inherently have a shock factor, even though his primary purpose was to record Columbian history.
Botero’s paintings were very shocking. I wasn’t expecting them to be so disturbing, but that is what made them quite interesting. When I saw most of the paintings I felt extreme sorrow for the Colombian people. I had no idea of all that they had been through and still go through, and it is because of Botero’s paintings that I have learned this. It was hard to believe that people could do those type of torturous and murderous things to other human beings. It was very interesting that Botero chose to make his subject’s pudgy. I didn’t really understand his decision to do that, which was to add more volume and color. I guess if there is more person to paint, than there is more space to express their emotions.The fact that they were pudgy didn’t really affect the fact that they were tortured, but it did make it seem a little unrealistic since the subjects didn’t really look the way the people actually did. That is probably a good thing that he made the subjects chubby, though, because if they did look realistic, then the paintings would be too gruesome and some may not be able to handle it. It almosts softens the situations he paints. I think Botero painted these paintings for both schock value and to record history. He seemed to mostly capture the negative events that happened in his homeland, but that is what is always masked to everyone else, which is why he did it. This can create shock to most people who have no idea of the occurences in Colombia.
ReplyDeleteBeing raised in Colombia makes Botero a true Colombian. In my opinion, because your childhood has a huge impact on who you become and consists of most of a person’s learning, where you are raised as a child defines who you are forever. Even though Botero left Colombia, he was raised on their beliefs and customs and it is his home. I cannot simply go and move to Colombia and live there for ten years and say I’m a Colombian, because that is still not where I was originally raised and influenced. By moving there I am simply adopting a new lifestyle, but will never fully become it. Botero doesn’t live there anymore, but he still keeps in touch with family and he is constantly updated on the events occuring there. He may not live there now, but he cares about it because it is his original home. I think the fact that he doesn’t sell his paintings of his home really shows that he cares about his country. This information proves that he is only painting for the benefit of others learning about what has happened, not for monetary gain. He is respecting Colombia by not earning money for the country’s misfortunes. Botero truly wants everyone to know what evil people are doing to other innocent people, not only in Colombia, but everywhere around the world, and that way viewers are learning the wickedness people are capable of doing and can maybe be influenced to do something about it or change their ways. These type of paintings must have been very hard for Botero to paint, but they really show that he cares and loves his country and wants to share their misfortunes with everyone to maybe inflict some change in people’s hearts.