Fernando Botero

Well-known for his pictures of grotesquely fat politicos, clerics, prostitutes and generals, Colombian painter Fernando Botero executed a series of mordant, exquisitely detailed bullfight scenes in the 1980s. His jewel-like oils, watercolors and sketches depict pompous matadors, fawning maidens, strutting picadors and gaping crowds, along with guitarists, flamenco dancers and singers. On one level, this parade of images can be read as a hilarious satire on the bullfight and the human pretensions surrounding it. Like the rest of Botero's work, it can also be interpreted as a meditation on the limits of sensuality as a path to salvation. In his high-flown introductory essay, Bonald, a Spanish novelist and literary scholar, draws interesting connections between Botero's ``fantastic anthropology'' and the magic realism of Garcia Marquez. (Dec.)