{"id":235,"date":"2014-07-30T12:57:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T16:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/?p=235"},"modified":"2014-09-01T15:38:27","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T19:38:27","slug":"the-old-dog-begins-to-bit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/?p=235","title":{"rendered":"The Old Dog Begins to Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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The artist\u2019s subjects are enormous. <\/p>\n

\nHe is fond of fleshy souls and depicts them in all their immensity. <\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

Born in Columbia in 1932, Fernando Botero
\ntook the figures of his boyhood and his imagination,
\nand inflated them, endowing his dancers, husbands,
\nbullfighters and lovers with comic and mythic proportion.<\/p>\n

\"image\"\"image\"<\/p>\n

The images are widely beloved. Botero\u2019s art hangs in museums
\naround the world. He is incredibly famous. He is incredible wealthy.
\nHe has made thousands of paintings, each one worth
\nmore than most make in a lifetime.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to paint pleasant things\u2026All of my life, by conviction,
\n I did subjects that were rather pleasant.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

As a young artist, Botero left Columbia for New York.
\nIn the 13 years he lived there, he painted only his private Columbia.
\nHe moved to Paris and resided there for more than 30 years.
\nBut Paris was never his subject. Only the quaint, charming
\nfigures from his mythic Columbia made the canvas.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

All this time, the real Columbia was mired in disaster.
\nThere were massacres, kidnappings and torture.
\nGuerillas, paramilitary groups, government forces and
\nvicious drug cartels vied for control. Life was cheap.
\n200,000 Columbians were murdered while Botero painted.<\/p>\n

But decade after decade, the popular artist portrayed only a sweet,
\nwhimsical world of perpetual innocence. <\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

Then something happened. <\/p>\n

We do not know what. <\/p>\n

All we know is that as he approached his 70th year,
\nthe artist began painting things most unpleasant.<\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

He had heard and read the news reports.
\nHe had imagined the countless horrors of his homeland.
\nNow he took paint to canvas. <\/p>\n

\"image\"\"image\" <\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

The fat images were no longer funny.<\/p>\n

\"image\"\"image\" <\/p>\n

The world famous artist did not sell these paintings.
\nHe gave them to the people of Columbia,
\ndonating the work to the National Museum of Columbia.<\/p>\n

Botero seemed to be changing.<\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

When he read of the crimes at Abu Ghraib,
\nhe said he felt he must do something.
\nSo he began to draw. He began to paint.<\/p>\n

\"image\"\"image\" <\/p>\n

His prisoners carry the voluminous corpulence that is his trademark,
\nbut now they wear their flesh as a kind of stark testament
\nto their tortures. The images are emphatic, insistent.<\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to recreate the atmosphere in the prison with scenes
\nthat were not scenes in the photos, to make some idea of the feeling,
\nso that I could communicate some idea of the horrors that were going on\u2026
\nIn painting there is this concentration of emotion through time,
\nleaving out everything that doesn\u2019t concern the subject,
\nand this makes the images in painting have special meaning\u2026.<\/p>\n

Art has the capacity to make us remember a situation for a long time.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

The artist who found fame and fortune creating
\namusing figures from a quaint land of the past
\nnow turns to our world and our time,
\nand says terrible and unjust events must not go forgotten.<\/p>\n

\"image\" <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be remembered\u2026.I could not stay silent. The power of art
\nis to make you remember something. I hope that will happen with my work.\u201d
\n<\/i><\/div align>\n

[All quotes taken from an interview with Botero here<\/a>. For a slide show
\non his Abu Ghraib work, go here<\/a>. A good story on his first forays into
\nColumbian political art can be found here<\/a>]. <\/em><\/i> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The artist\u2019s subjects are enormous. He is fond of fleshy souls and depicts them in all their immensity. Born in Columbia in 1932, Fernando Botero took the figures of his boyhood and his imagination, and inflated them, endowing his dancers, husbands, bullfighters and lovers with comic and mythic proportion. The images are widely beloved. Botero\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfingthespectacle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}