All the animals I’ve painted always have a relationship with man. I have been told that part of the knowledge of the human anatomy comes from animals. Fernando Botero Read Quote
I love art so much because of curiosity. At the start of a painting, I know 10 percent of what the painting will be, and then I have to improvise the whole thing. Fernando Botero Read Quote
All my life, my girlfriends are always skinny. Beauty in art has nothing to do with beauty in reality. Why do you like primitive art? Because there is beauty in the deformity. Sometimes paintings that people consider realistic are not at all. Raphael figures look realistic, but in real life, they were deformed. Fernando Botero Read Quote
Expression without culture is flat. Many artists come out of art school and start doing things that don’t last. They are audacious because of ignorance. They are irresponsible. Fernando Botero Read Quote
I believe that it’s better to have a conviction, believe strongly in something, and then the convictions create a style that reflects your mentality. Fernando Botero Read Quote
You paint what you know best; what you went through as a teenager and child. My world is the one I got to know in Medellin; I never paint anything else other than that. Fernando Botero Read Quote
Art is important because when people start to forget, art reminds them what happened. Like ‘Guernica.’ People would not remember the tragedy of Guernica today if it were not for that painting. Fernando Botero Read Quote
Art is always an exaggeration in some sense; in color, in form, even in theme, etc… but it has always been this way. It is the same with the nature of some works by Giotto or Massacio, or the color of life as expressed by Van Gogh. Fernando Botero Read Quote
My popularity has to do with the divorce between modern art, where everything is obscure, and the viewer who often feels he needs a professor to tell them whether it’s good or not. I believe a painting has to talk directly to the viewer, with composition, color and design, without a professor to explain it. Fernando Botero Read Quote
