Italian years, the trauma of confrontaton with the popular and commercial energies of the New York form of abstraction must have been bewildering, to say the least. In fact, Botero did not succumb completely to the lure of Abstract Expressionism, but adapted many of its techniques and forms at the beginning of a new phase of his own distinctive approach to figuration.

Within the context of his first "NewYork period", which would last until 1965, we observe a fascinating dialogue taking place in his painting with the forms of abstraction that were much in fashion at the time. In fact, Botero began to meld his interest in the Old Masters and his attraction to the outward appearances of abstract form in a series of paintings based on characters drawn from the art of Leonardo and Velázquez. One of the most significant moments of this period came when the Museum of Modern Art acquired his painting known as Mon Lisa Aged 12. In this and other related works in which appropriation and reinvention are the key elements, we observe a close-up view of easily- recognizable members of his art historical cast of characters, set against a background of slashing, zig-zagging brush strokes (Botero also did a well-known 1977 version of the Mona Lisa (see page 57), in which the Italian landscape behind the figure has been transformed into a South American view, complete with smoking volcano). These paintings, and others executed between circa 1959 and circa 1963, display a treatment of the figure itself as the site of experimentation with form. The faces, bodies, clothing and other elements are also conceived according to the terms of the loose, gestural application of paint that derives, at least in part, from the Abstract Expressionists. These works could be conceived as his 'response' to the North American action painters. However, if we consider them as a 'response' to action painting, we must also be sure to understand his fidelity to the figure. Botero's allegiance to observed reality is an undeniably persistent facet of his art - and one that connects him to specific art historical trends within the panorama of South American painting of the 1960s.

Already in 1958 Botero had declared, upon receiving the prize at the Salòn Nacional de Artistas in Bogota: ''Realism is the true vanguard.'' After several decades of experimentation in a variety of abstract languages, many artists in various Latin American countries sought to re-insert the figure 'Into the discourse of contemporary art making in the 1960s. For example, the New Figuration movement in Argentina produced such masters as ]orge de Ia Vega, Luis Noé and Romolo Macciò. Venezuelan artist Jacobo Borges took an expressionistic approach to the figure, and Alberto Gironella of Mexico developed a type of Pop Surrealism in his highly ironic art. Botero's steadfast belief in the possibilities of figuration was symptomatic of the reactions of many artists within the region. In Colombia, Pop art, the elevation of the banal elements of everyday existence, had a particular resonance.While North American Pop tended to celebrate the over-abundance of a consumer society, its Colombian variety often appropriated it and subverted its meanings. In Latin America, Pop-related forms were used for the purposes of social or political criticism. Colombian artist Antonio Caro, for instance, has made many trenchant images in his flat, commercially-related visual language that make wry comments on the lack of consumer goods among certain sectors of Colombian society. Enrique Grau, working in a more benign mode, often caricatures the bourgeoisie in his work.The eminent critic Marta Traba, author of an insightful history of Colombian art, has noted that, unlike his fellow painters, many of whom reacted to the international Pop movements in their own ways, Botero infused his figurative art with an acute sense of humor and human empathy that was missing in others. She states that for the first time, Botero appropriated the humor (as well as social commentary) that, until then had been the purview of cartoonists and caricaturists⁽¹⁾. This characteristic sensitivity to the vicissitudes of human existence, as well as the acknowledgment of the attraction of worldly pleasures, has produced a sense of constant oscillation in the art of Botero. His work is deeply humanist in the most consequential sense.

After the early 1960s, Botero developed a characteristic form of painting which, formally speaking, has at its heart the obscuring of the brush stroke in an almost Ingresque way. His adaptation of this formalist strategy, associated with the painters active in Paris after 1800 (he deeply admires Ingres and David) is, in a complex sense, related to his attraction to the classical vocabulary of art. Botero has generally remained faithful to this manner of painting. Nonetheless, in many of his works after the mid- 1990s, the brushstroke seems to make a discreet reappearance, and there is a subtle change in his approach to both color and the size of the figures. His repertory of themes, however, has undergone many dramatic shifts and evolutions. In attempting to come to terms with the complexities of his oeuvre it is useful to discuss his paintings according to categories, rather than attempt any sustained discussion of chronological development. Each of the principal themes that have occupied the imagination of Botero (religion, politics, sex and sensuality, everyday life in Colombia, the still life, and the bullfight) have been treated in a distinct fashion. Each of his subjects has been explored as a paradigm of the artist's own conceptual world view.

⁽¹⁾ Marta Traba, Historia abierta del arte colombiano, Bogota, 1984, p. 175.

Humanist / Universalist
Botero: Artist and Art Historian   Botero and the Sacred   Botero as Social Critic
Botero the Sensualist   Botero and Things   Botero : Colombian Artist   Botero and La Corrida