THE BIRTH OF A STYLE

Botero’s style was definitively consecrated while painting a still life: it was in 1956 that the artist, having relocated to Mexico (where he would stay for just over a year and a half) and up late working in his studio, drew the shape of a mandolin. As he sketched the resonating chamber, it turned out quite small. The contrast between the generous surrounding environment and the minuscule detail at the centre caused the drawing to explode in all its monumentality and deformation, and it was at that moment that Botero understood, with absolute clarity, that he had discovered something essential for his work, a decisive response to his tireless exploration. This was the beginning of a process that led him to consolidate his style, his unique and unmistakeablelanguage, the fruit of his continuous experimentation, of contemplation, and ceaseless questioning – a reflection of his artistic convictions and of his ability to transform the years of learning assimilated into something new, fresh, and his own. Botero’s style is based on the sensuality of shapes and on the exaltation of volumes. Each brush stroke reflects his artistic convictions. His is a universe of volumes in which each of his characters, flowers, figures, fruits, mountains, and animals are painted with the same intention, the same gesture. He used to say: “Volumes produce an exaltation of life. Deformation generates an imbalance in the art that becomes necessary to re-establish, and only through a consistent style is the naturalness of the deformation recovered.”