Chantel Velazquez



Chantel Velazquez

Museum Art Critique

ARE 3313- Section U02

Professor Ritzi

After visiting the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami and observing the pieces that were being exhibited, one still life piece stood out at me for its uniqueness and diversity of perspective. The painting is called “Las Frutas” and is by Fernando Botero. The painting was done with oil on canvas and painted in 1964. The size of the painting is 49 ½ by 50 1/4.

Fernando Botero is a Colombian artist who was born in 1932. He is well known for his paintings of “fat people” and most of his works contain these corpulent, bloated forms. His portraits depict the human figure in exaggerated proportions. His paintings are mostly colorful and vivid focusing usually on the human form, but also coming in the form of landscapes and still life.

Description

“Las Frutas” is a still life painting of five pieces of fruit. Four of the fruit pieces are different shades of reds and oranges and one piece of fruit is a complementary color green. The fruit is sitting on what appears to be a wooden stool or stand. They are drawn in organic shapes and are all slightly different in shape and size. The fruits overlap each other- there are two in the back and three in the front, which partially cover those that are behind them. The fruits take up the majority of the space on the top of the stool.

The texture of the fruit appears to be almost marshmallow-like. There are darker values toward the bottom of the piece and lighter values on the top. The painting appears to have a light source coming from the top but it is out of the picture frame and cannot be seen directly. The changing light across the surface of the fruit creates the clear illusion of form. The proportion of the fruit seems to be larger than usual and takes up more space than they would in reality, therefore there is not much depth of space in the painting. The background of the painting which makes up the negative space is rather plain- just a simple orangey wall.

Analysis

There is no explicit organized pattern in the painting, however, the repetitive nature of the fruit suggests a somewhat free-form pattern. Botero create an emphasis on the fruit in the painting by placing them front and center. Through his use of form, he portrays fruits that are three-dimensional and appear to protrude from the painting. In addition, the more vivid colors of the fruit also help to emphasize them in relation to the background. There is a certain amount of contrast in the painting between the dull monotonous background and the more vibrant fruits. In addition, the fruits are contrasting within each other because they are all different colors, especially the one green fruit.

Botero uses staggering of the fruit on the stool to create a sense of balance. Because the two fruits in the back lie within the empty spaces left by the three fruit in front, the fruits appear to be more equally distributed. Though the balance is not symmetrical, it still makes all the fruit in the painting equally important. Botero also creates rhythm in the painting by repeating the orange and red tones throughout the entire work. There is not a strong sense of actual movement in the painting because the fruits are at a stand still and are at rest. But eye movement is generated by the flowing lines of the voluptuous overlapping forms.

Once again, the reddish and orange colors repeat throughout the work to create a sense of unity. The artist’s use of the exaggerated organic shapes for all the fruit also helps to unify the piece. Although there is repetition in the similar use of forms, the simple variety of fruit in the arrangement is still evident. Some tension can be seen in the painting through the relation of the fruits to one another. Since the fruit are so large and take up almost all the space on the top of the stool, some tension is created in whether or not the fruits may fall off of the stool.

Interpretation

I think that Botero used this painting to demonstrate that exaggerated proportions could be used not only in the depiction of the human form, but also in the depiction of a still life. This painting shows that even something as realistic as fruit could be conveyed from a surrealist subjective perspective. The enormous size of the fruit makes them appear to be swollen and tender, giving the fruits a certain aspect of sensuality and drawing attention to its physicality and form. Any object in the still life could easily be replaced with a human form and the feeling achieved would remain unchanged. The still life painting also conveys to the viewer a sense of heroic stature and a feeling of sensuality very similar to his figure paintings. It is in this dynamic yet sensitive handling and depiction of these inanimate objects that Botero’s familiar style comes shining through.

Judgment

I believe that the work is an extremely successful one. It portrayed a common, still life in a new and unique perspective that was interesting to look at. From a formalist perspective, the work was unified, structured and balanced. The artist’s use of these design elements helped to create a beautiful work of art that was pleasing to view. In addition, I also believe that the piece was successful from an expressivism perspective because although the painting is so simple and uses a common subject, there appears to be a new meaning conveyed through the artist’s unique style of conveying the fruit. His use of exaggerated colors in the fruit also adds to the expressive nature of the work. Their gigantic size creates a sense of grotesque enormousness that is somehow still extremely sensual because of the form and soft texture of the fruit.

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