Fernando Botero

signed in English and dated 98, framed

Gary Nader Fine Arts, Miami
Sotheby's, New York, 30 May, 2007, lot 7

This lot is sold with a certificate of authenticity from the artist.

This work is in excellent condition. Canvas appears to have been strip lined. The edges are reinforced with tape. Artist pinholes at all four corners and center of right edge. There are a few, unobtrusive pin-dot nick to the surface at center of top edge, which are associated with framing. Surface is clean. Under UV light no inpainting is apparent.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

If women are often my subjects, it’s because they have been  one of the main subjects in painting for centuries. What really guides me above all, when I sculpt or paint men, women, animals, or objects, is the plastic aspect of beings and things. Plasticity exists indiscriminately in a woman, a still life, or landscape.

- Fernando Botero

One of the most persistent images throughout the history of art from antiquity to the present is the female nude. From the Venus of Willendorf (24,000-22,000 B.C.), Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (c. 1485), and Velázquez’s Nude Maja (1797-1800) to Manet’s Olympia (1863), Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon (1907), and Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, (The Large Glass), (1915-23), representations of the female body have provided artists with fertile territory for exploring a range of formal, conceptual, political, and social concerns. Likewise, a mere cursory inventory of these masterpieces of Western art illustrate changing cultural or societal values vis à vis notions of gender, sexuality, and the body as well as the many artistic and formal conventions or tropes associated with this genre throughout the history of art.

The Colombian artist Fernando Botero is known for excavating the annals of Western art history for source material that he then ably transforms into his own distinct style in which his repertoire of rotund and disproportionate figures and inanimate objects are equally subjected to the same formal effects characterized by the artist’s barely perceptible brushwork and an overall flatness and smoothness that neutralizes his subjects and forever suspends them within reality and pictorial illusionism. While one cannot help but perceive a trace of irony in Botero’s use of appropriation or pastiche, his love of art history and his passion for painting are palatable as is evident in such remarks as, I’m attracted to painters of the treccento and quatroccento Giotto, Masaccio, Uccello, Piero della Francesca and to such later artists as Rubens and Ingres. They all depict figures of a certain fullness. You’re attracted instinctively to a certain kind of art and your work takes a similar direction." (2)

Perhaps no subject matter has occupied Botero’s creative musings and production more than that of the female nude. And, while he has painted countless female figures in a variety of poses and situations, the reclining nude has proven to be particularly fascinating and provided the artist with ample opportunity to revisit and expand the formal tropes associated with this recurrent motif throughout the ages. Botero’s voluptuous nudes, such as the woman depicted in Reclining Nude are unlike most of their historical forerunners unabashedly confident, strong, and very au courant as is evident in her stylish accessories and hot pink polish on her dainty fingers and toes. Like Édouard Manet’s cosmopolitan femme fatale Olympia, Botero’s women are far from being delicate nymphs or love slaves. They own their pictorial space and stare back at the viewer with a certain matter-of-factness that neutralizes or challenges the proverbial male gaze. However, unlike Manet’s other iconic painting of female nudes, Les Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (1863), our protagonist is not subjugated to a secondary role as part of a larger grouping caught unexpectedly by the viewer in a moment of immodesty, but rather she alone dominates her territory and it is the viewer who seems to be caught off guard by her assuredness. Indeed, never voyeuristic, Botero’s sensuous reclining nudes invite the viewer into a dialogue that not only celebrates the female form in all its plenitude and exuberance à la baroque renderings of Rubens and Titian, but suggests a bridge between those art historical antecedents and the possibilities of painting and representations of the body and gender in contemporary art and culture today.

 Likewise it is interesting to note that while representations of the female nude are often conflated with myriad symbolic and literal references to notions of womanhood, femininity, and traditional gender roles, they have also served to buttress or perpetuate ideas about beauty across cultures and centuries. Botero’s rotund ladies not only recall the well endowed woman of the aforementioned Baroque masters, but by painting these confident, joyous, plus size women the artist asserts an alternative standard of beauty that challenges prevailing Western ideals and those perpetuated by such contemporary popular and media icons as Kate Moss and Nicole Richie.

 

(1) Fernando Botero with an Introduction by Carlos Fuentes, Botero: Women, New York: Rizzoli, 2003, p. 34.

(2) Ibid., p. 165.

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The Plasticity of Beauty

The body is the universal symbol of humanity, transgressing historical, temporal and geographical boundaries. Since the Ancient Greeks’ establishment of the criteria for ‘beauty’, the West has witnessed a ceaseless pursuit of bodily perfection. Contemporary society’s obsessive gym culture testifies to the endurance of this all-consuming striving for the ideal body. The ideal has certainly changed over time and this diversity of interpretations is greatly attributable to cultural nuances; today’s models would no doubt brand Rubens’ fleshy nudes as ‘fat’, just as the strong physicality of Socialist Realism’s working women are in antithesis to the sinuous representations of the goddess Venus in Antiquity. Yet an understanding that the body is man’s most powerful asset, a persisting weapon which unites all members of society, has never been called into question.

Matisse’s Nue Allongée (Lot 22) locates itself in the traditional Western canon of female nudes. The figure accepts her role as the object of our vision, laying herself bare, quite literally, to the presupposed male gaze. Her body unfurls to reveal itself to the viewer, making no attempt to protect her modesty. This confident projection of her sexuality is somewhat undermined by her closed eyes; her unawareness of our presence imposes upon us the role of stealthy voyeur. This sharply contrasts with Botero’s Reclining Nude with Book (Lot 21), in which the protagonist establishes a dialogue with us on two levels; primarily she entices us in with the turning of her body, voluntarily opening herself up to our scrutiny. Yet, where she distinguishes herself from Matisse’s subject is her unwavering eye contact. Unlike in Matisse’s work, in Botero’s we ourselves become the object of the subject’s vision, just as much as she is of ours. Therefore the traditional viewing practices of man lusting over the female nude is overturned here in the simple act of looking out to us, defiantly returning our gaze. However, what is most noticeable throughout Botero’s creations is the celebration of  the female form in its most organic state. Botero’s works are not merely a visual experience; evoking the sumptuous fleshiness of fertility goddess sculptures, Botero heightens our sensual exploration of the bodies by exaggerating the hips in Reclining Nude with Book (Lot 21), the undulating back and bottom of Femme Nue Allongée (Lot 20) and the soft dimpled thighs in Ballerina (Lot 15). Whilst Matisse’s woman might bear a closer resemblance to what we today might perceive as a ‘good body’, Botero’s women appeal to man’s atavistic, carnal desires -the driving force behind humanity.

These works are confined to the 20th century and male objectification of the female body. Cast our eye towards Asian art of the same century and an entirely novel discourse ensues, demoting the predominance of the body and instead elevating external ideas provoked by it. Whilst the Lots by Botero and Matisse are consumed by  their focus on the female nude, works by Yin Kun and Yin Jun refer to ideas beyond the form; they are not self-contained. In Yin Jun’s Crying (Lot 17) the face hierarchically overwhelms the slender frame of the girl. We are inspired to grapple with the image on an emotional rather than a physical level. We have caught the girl in a moment of turmoil, her face turned upwards towards the heavens, her mouth soundlessly emitting a wail. Her tears, with a thickness implying greater solidity than liquid, appear almost in relief on her face, adding a sculptural dimension to the canvas. This is not a mere study of the human form, this is about human pain and raw emotion. Likewise, Yin Kun’s Chinese Hero 07-06-6 (Lot 16) does not prioritise the body; it rather serves as a support for the soldier’s faces. The faces are uniform, lacking individual characteristics. Is this, in fact, a social commentary? In a nation with over 1 billion people the role of the individual in China is uncertain, each person at risk of being subsumed into a wash of faces in the wider population. Only one of the figures has his eyes open, observing those around him. He looks over the tops of their heads at a point beyond the confines of the canvas; is he looking to a place away from the featureless masses surrounding him? In Zhu Wei’s China China (Lot 18) this concept is more fully elaborated. Its mere title seems a collective cry of patriotism. With only minimal marks for their noses and ears, the two figures sway forward together; they are a united force with no signs of individuality or potential for greater movement, their arms locked firmly to their sides. What we can see here then, is the human form being put in the service of greater ideas, extending its importance beyond a formalist reading and implying a reference to wider issues.

Sometimes, as in Jun Ming’s Taichi Series (Lot 13 and 19), the human form is abstracted. Here is the human form being dissected in an attempt to visually verbalise the central concepts underlying Taichi - controlling and harnessing one’s energy to achieve mental calm and clarity. Jun Ming has stripped the figure to it’s most elemental forms. The harsh lines of the wood surface or the powerful texture of bronze run parallel with the physical control and restrained actions necessitated by Taichi. Just as the figure engaging in Taichi is concentrating solely on his movements, Jun Ming occupies himself with capturing the spirituality of the martial art through the earthyelements, untainted by paint or varnish; nature in its purest form.

Historically the human form has undergone great transformation in art. Its survival, however, lies in its potential to be assimilated for different aims yet maintain its core integrity. While the perception and reverence of the subject may vary, the recurrence of the theme throughout the generations and through different cultures, whether applied for political ends or solely for aesthetic pleasure, is testament to the undefeatable and enduring power of the human body and mankind’s fascination with its beauty.