Fernando Botero & His Unique Artistic Boterismo Style in Sacred Art
Round and feline, oversized and exaggerated, charming and quirky, calm and serene – this is the style of Fernando Botero, the “Boterismo”.
Fernando Botero (1932–2023), a Colombian artist of Italian origin, had an astonishingly successful artistic career from a very young age. From Botero’s official biography you can find out that at the age of 16 he would already work as an illustrator for the most famous magazine in Bogota, have his solo exhibitions and be a winner of the country’s most prestigious art competition – Salon of Cololbian Art.
With such an early start as an artist, Botero goes to Spain to study the Velázquez painting technique. After spending quite some time in Spain, then France and Italy, he moves to New York where his style becomes definitely recognizable – the charming and quirky “Boterismo”. Later, in this style of sweet oversized exaggeration Botero creates all his series on political and social subjects but also his religious devotional series.
“Art should be an oasis, a place of refuge from the hardness of life” – Fernando Botero
