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 BoteroRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art is a serious pursuit that demands total dedication from the artist.
In this quote, Fernando Botero emphasizes the profound commitment required to be an artist, comparing the integrity of the artistic profession to that of a priest. He conveys that art is not a trivial pursuit, but rather a calling that demands complete and total investment from the individual, underscoring the weightiness and significance of the creative process.
Themes
ArtistArtDedicationCommitmentSeriousness
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about pursuing one's passions, this quote can serve to highlight the seriousness of dedication.
More from Fernando Botero
All quotes →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 BoteroRead
Nobody ever told me, 'Art is this.' This was good luck in a way because I would have had to spend half of my life forgetting everything that I had been told, which is what happens with most students in schools of fine arts.
Fernando BoteroRead
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 BoteroRead
I was drawing a mandolin, and I made the sound hole very small, which made the mandolin look gigantic. I saw that making the details small made the form monumental. So in my figures, the eyes, the mouth are all small, and the exterior form is huge.
Fernando BoteroRead
When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting.
Fernando BoteroRead
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