Art Review: For Botero, bigger is better

Massive. That's the only way to describe "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero," currently on exhibit at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

Many of the paintings and sculptures, all culled from the Colombian painter's personal collection, are physically huge, dominating entire gallery walls or, in the case of three bronze sculptures called "Smoking Woman," "The Rape of Europa," and "Hand," the courtyard outside the Brooks' main entrance. Botero's subject matter -- particularly his portraiture -- is also outsized, exaggerated, and inflated to superhuman proportions.

"After Velazquez" is a riff on that painter's "La Infanta Margarita."

Fernando Botero's The Widow, 1997.

"The Orchestra," 2001, by Fernando Botero.

Initially, Botero's images seem counterintuitive. The rotund, Rubenesque human forms that fill his canvases certainly have little in common with the current corps of celebrity bods. But at second glance, these are prolific shapes, prevalent in both pre-Colombian artifacts and the contemporary urban culture proselyted by MTV.

Botero, a would-be toreador who preferred painting bulls to fighting them, was born in Medellin, Colombia, in 1932. He began exhibiting his work in his late teens; by the 1960s, his paintings were hanging on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art.

His influences span the physical -- and cultural -- distance between his rural South American roots and his life today as a denizen of New York, Paris, Monte Carlo and Pietrasanta, Italy. In between, Botero was inspired by Mexican muralists, European art, Spanish colonist art and the Baroque movement.

This retrospective is similarly divided.

"Emblems of Faith" describes Botero's attempts to show suffering made palpable via gargantuan paintings like "Crucifix," which depicts a chunky, yet muscular Jesus on the cross, and dual portraits of Adam and Eve, who are portrayed as wide-hipped, double-chinned Europeans who have obviously been gorging themselves in the Garden of Eden.

Next, viewers can examine Botero's respect for -- and emulation of -- masterworks by painters like Ingres, Giacometti, Courbet and Delacroix. One wall is devoted to his "Hall of the Immortals," portraits of those 19th century artists; another features a 1998 work, "Picasso in Paris." "After Velazquez," a 2005 work, riffs on that painter's 1656 work, "La Infanta Margarita."

It's fascinating to compare the dual images; Botero's rendition is largely faithful, yet each detail is exaggerated to the point that the princess morphs into a cartoonish, epic creature, a move reminiscent of Violette Beauregarde's transformation into a giant blueberry in Willie Wonka's mythic chocolate factory. The Duchess and Duke of Urbino get similar treatment, as Botero, inspired by Piero Della Francesca's 1472 portraits of the duo, renders them as haughty, Easter Island-proportioned talking heads.

Botero's still-life studies show similar humor and depth. He takes a democratic approach to inanimate objects, as evidenced in works like "Still Life with Lamp." A slice of watermelon -- sensual consumption -- sits speared on a fork, as if a human has just stepped out of frame to grab a napkin. But things aren't entirely as they initially seem: In "Pear," a smiley-faced worm chews a tiny hole; in another painting, nearly invisible insects buzz around an overly ripe pineapple.

With "Images of Power: Aspects of Violence," Botero gets serious. He takes on both the paramilitary and the revolutionaries who have ravaged his native country in works like "The Wall (Execution)," which evokes Goya's 19th century prints "The Disasters of War," and "20.15 Hours (Massacre)," which depicts defenseless working-class Colombians who lay slaughtered on a cantilevered floor, broken furniture strewn around them. The chaos within, amplified by rough angles, reads like an update on Picasso's "Guernica," which dates to the Spanish Civil War.

Finally, we get a chance to examine the vagaries of daily South American life as seen by Botero, who, says Brooks curator Marina Pacini, has created a parallel universe similar to Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez' world in "One Hundred Years of Solitude." A crossdresser peers forlornly into a mirror; a band of musicians struggles to entertain; clients at a bordello eagerly await their turn in the sweat-stained sheets.

Botero's 1997 painting "The Widow" is as close to an autobiographical work as anything in this show. It depicts his mother, a tear-stained laundress with three children to raise, standing wearily beneath a clothesline of dripping shirts and skirts. A cat is clutched to her bosom, and the children gambol underfoot. It could be circa-1930s Colombia, or it could be any kitchen in the world today.

Suffering is universal, Botero knows, and he deftly combined humor and pathos to create this work.

p>The Baroque World of Fernando Botero

At the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art through Jan. 11. For more information, go to BrooksMuseum.org.

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