Woman With Children, Fernando Botero (2018)

A little green horse head stands skewered by a wooden pole, betwixt a young, hefty boy’s blue chino shorts. The boy grips the reigns of the horse’s bridle in his left hand and a small wooden stick in the other. Soft salmon pink blushes his cheeks… why? He and the young girl on the other side of a large woman in a yellow dress play on the cobblestone street. They look at the face of the woman––a face hidden to the viewer. She holds an infant over her right shoulder, and the infant stares at the viewer. The mother’s cap-sleeve dress pleats at the knee, ending with a band of coral at the hem. The two older children also wear colorful-hued outfits, their apparel both containing glimpses of the mustard seen in their mother’s dress. The sky glistens baby blue, with an exception of a few clouds on the right. The woman looks out over the horizon, the wall of homes in front of her, and the lush green mountains beyond.

The hefty mother clutches her newborn in her right arm, keeping him pressed against her chest––protected. Her thin brown hair skicks back into a perfect, professional low ponytail––controlled. She stares out over the skyline and clouds above, her view blocked by a wall of terracotta housing. The wall impedes the mother’s myriad aspirations for both herself and her kin. A voice, a happy home, successful children, a healthy life. The cobblestone feels cold and troublesome below her short heels, like society. She lives with her three children, lacking help from a man, woman, colleague––alone. She stands tall, putting on a front for her naive, joyful, corpulent children. She cries for herself, for them, for the world––hopeless. The unknown begins to cloud perfection as a potential storm rolls in, darkening the once-baby blue sky. Terror overcomes her. Her needy older children nag at her for attention while her infant tries to escape her firm grasp. However, her focus spans beyond the present. She loves them and wants the best for them, but they exhaust her with their incessant need for her approval and attention. She must keep them entertained, well-fed, and happy while trying to solve the world’s social problems. She stands before the wall, praying for change, for hope, inspiration.

Through his works, Fernando Botero boasts the title of “most recognized living artist from Latin America,” his first exhibition opening in 1948. Born in 1932, Botero is unlike any artist you’ve met before. Starting his career at just sixteen, he focuses on vibrant still lifes and situational portraiture with flat painting styles, eliminating texture and brush lines, and crafting works of individuals of corpulence with exaggerated volume. This style, coming about in the 1960s, has been coined by Botero himself as “Boterismo,” to which society had responded with political criticism as well as humor. Viewers found the pieces comical, but also disturbing and somewhat offensive to heavier individuals. However, these Boterismo pieces, featuring large, colorful individuals, do not target heavier people, but instead jab at the common “inflated” sense of self and importance in society. Along with these pieces, his Boterismo “family-focused” pieces such as Woman with Children possess themes of gentility, love, light and affection.

His work, now in over fifty exhibits worldwide, boasts of years in major galleries in New York City and Paris, among myriad other locations like Bogotá, Chicago and Long Beach. After studying in major museums in Paris in the 1950s, he now lives there permanently, still creating incredible pieces. His work’s inspiration comes from pre-Colombian and Spanish Colonial art, as the theme surrounded him growing up. Though he attended matador school at a young age, he chose to follow his longtime artistic passions. Through his art, Botero hopes to inspire change, peace, and a happy, humble world.