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" I had an uncle who took me to the ring in Medellin when I was 15 years old. In school, we had someone who taught us how to bullfight. "

Fernando Botero

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" I have seen Colonial churches since I was very small, Colonial painting and polychrome sculpture. And that was all I saw. There was not a single modern painting in any museum, not a Picasso, not a Braque, not a Chagall. The museums had Colombian painters from the eighteenth century and, of course, I saw Pre-Columbian art. That was my exposure. "

Fernando Botero

" There's nothing more superficial to do than to paint a beautiful woman. The most beautiful portraits in art were of ugly women. If you paint Brigitte Bardot, it's a disaster. Sunsets, you have to stay away from sunsets. You paint a sunset, you are in great danger. "

Fernando Botero

" People say, 'What a discipline, painting so much.' I say, 'No, I love it.' Nothing amuses me as much as my work. To have discipline would be not to paint. "

Fernando Botero

" Sketching is almost everything. It is the painter's identity, his style, his conviction, and then color is just a gift to the drawing. "

Fernando Botero

" Before anything else, I started painting bulls and matadors. That was my initiation to paint. "

Fernando Botero

" My work is a self-portrait of my mind, a prism of my convictions. "

Fernando Botero

" I love my country, and it hurts not to be able to see my country, as I did for so many years. I hope that I will one day be able to live in a peaceful Colombia. "

Fernando Botero

" In a photo, you just do a click, but in art you have to put in so much energy. This concentration of energy and attention says something that other media cannot say. "

Fernando Botero

" 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

" The circus allows one to be logical and unreal at the same time. In the circus, all is possible: there can be a man with two heads or a character with a green face. "

Fernando Botero

" In the '60s, I did many satirical portraits of dictators. "

Fernando Botero

" I follow politics very closely. I read several newspapers every day. "

Fernando Botero

" I often think about death, and it saddens me to leave this world and not be able to paint more. I love it so much. "

Fernando Botero

" Art should be an oasis: a place or refuge from the hardness of life. "

Fernando Botero

" I'm the most Colombian of the Colombians, even though I've lived 47 years outside of Colombia. I've lived 13 years in New York, and I never did a painting about New York. I've lived in France more than 30 years, and I've never painted Paris. "

Fernando Botero

" 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

" 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

" 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

" The circus leaves a sweet memory. "

Fernando Botero

" An artist is born like a priest is born. If they are born an artist, I would tell them art is not a game: it is something very serious which completely requires everything you have to give. "

Fernando Botero

" I had wanted to be a sculptor throughout life, but to do so, I had to stop painting. "

Fernando Botero

" The only duty an artist has is in the quality of the art. There is no moral obligation to denounce. An artist confronted with a tremendous injustice sometimes feels inclined to say something. Denouncing the situation is the artist's choice. "

Fernando Botero

" 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

" An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it. "

Fernando Botero