Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero's self-identification as a man and artist from and of Colombia
is the single most outstanding characteristic of his art. In fact, one could
cite works in virtually every genre and analyse them according to the
specifically Colombian elements present in them. We have seen already how in his
religious compositions, such as Our Lady of Colombia, the flag connotes national
identity. Banners with the national colours rise from the Virgin's feet, and the
Christ Child holds a tiny Colombian flag.
National flags make their
appearance in many other works by the artist, and there are numerous instances
in which the national colours are introduced in more subtle ways. In the 1989
Man with a Dog, for example, the sitter stands within the courtyard of a
colonial house of the type that could easily be seen in any village or town in
Colombia-or in the colonial district of Bogotá known as La Candelaria.
In the 1983 painting
titled La Colombiana (Colombian Woman), a woman in a yellow dress stands just
inside the door of a house that could be located anywhere in the country. In a
1994 composition we observe just such an occurrence. Woman Falling from a
Balcony portrays a young woman, dressed only in a green slip and green high-heeled
shoes, flying through the air as she is observed by a man standing below. Does
this represent a terrible accident, a suicide or a vision of the observer? We
can only learn the ultimate outcome in our imaginations. In paintings such as
this Botero seems to be creating visual analogues of the extraordinary
imagination of Gabriel García Márquez, who, in his novels and short stories,
has created a world that may be described as both mundane and wondrous.