Fernando Botero--The Circus

"Once you get past the size of the figures, though, perhaps the oddest thing about Botero's style is the blank, expressionless looks on his figures' faces. They appear distanced and distracted, providing a tabula rosa upon which viewers can project their thoughts and feelings.

There's this blankness to his figures that functions as a kind of mirror," said Don Bacigalupi, a former contemporary art curator for the San Antonio Museum of Art who is now the director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.


The explanation above in regards to the "style" of Fernando Botero seems reasonable and explains a bit what the artist was portraying. But when these painting were exhibited in Monte Carlo at a International art festival last year, there was a tag that was hung with the pictures, that offered an Monacan explanation. Hear the arrogance and stereotyping in the Principality explanation: "Botero was in Mexico when he saw a circus parading down the street. It wasn't a circus, AS IN EUROPE, but a POOR circus that reminded him of those he saw as a child in Columbia. It was this that inspired him!!!!!!'