FERNANDO BOTERO
La familia presidencial (1967)
Oil on canvas
The Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
Gift of Warren D.
Benedek, 1967
Columbian artist, Fernando
Botero was inspired by
Mexican muralist Diego
Libera's three-dimensional
form of drawing and started
drawing exaggerated and
bloated characters and
objects since then. In this
painting of presidential
family, he seems as if he is
expressing his satire on
upper-class avarice and
corruption. All of the family
members are fat and are
adorned themselves with
expensive valuables. The first
thing that caught my eye in
an instance I saw this
painting was the animal the
president's wife has put on.
This animal as a living
creature is the only one that
seems to be not bloated. It
can mean both. The artists
opposition for animal abuse
since there is a slight sign of
blood on the back of her
clothes, and the black
(stating corruption in this
picture) swooping on her
without her even noticing
that as a negative corruption.
Apart from, her the
grandmother and the
daughter seems rather
innocent. They are wearing
white tone based clothes
and different from the wife, is
wearing white shoes. This
came to me as the degree of
corruption. The young girl
with no shoes, a
grandmother with white
shoes and the wife with black
shoes and the bag.
Although, grandmother has
black earrings as a hint of
privileged life as well as the
young girl's ribbon. Also, the
plane the girl is holding can
be the metaphor of the war
that her father is controlling
and the plane can stand for
the comfortable and playful
sense rather than violent and
crucial meaning. By
discussing colors, I'm not
sure about the snake but it's
debatable that the snake
right below the most
innocent ones is maybe the
suggestion of their
possibilities. Or in other
perspective, we can go back
to the past and discuss the
Bible and how snake corrupt
Adam and Eve. The last thing
that my eyes looked upon is
the mountains that they are
both standing on and
standing front. One
mountain has erupted as a
volcano, but I don't get the
significance of that eruption.
Though, the peacefulness
despite that eruption and the
fact that they are standing on
the mountain naturally and
comfortably seems to mean
that they are on top of
everybody, and they are
used to those high
expectations.