Minutes before 11 in the morning on Friday, September 22, the remains of maestro Fernando Botero arrived at the National Capitol in Bogotá, headquarters of the Congress of the Republic, where the tribute to the late Colombian artist will be held. The coffin of the painter and sculptor was escorted by his children Lina Botero and Fernando Botero Zea.
Accompanied by soldiers of the Presidential Guard, the coffin of the Antioquian artist was transferred to the Elliptical Hall of the Congress of the Republic, where his posthumous tribute will begin. There he will remain in the burning chamber for three days until next Monday, September 25, when his remains will be transferred to the Primate Cathedral where a mass will be celebrated at 11:00 in the morning. Finally, maestro Botero will return to his native Medellín (Antioquia), where he will continue the farewell tribute to him.
The tribute to the late painter and sculptor began with a few words from the head of protocol of the House of Representatives, Plinio Ordóñez, who delivered a speech to Maestro Botero’s family and highlighted Maestro Botero’s artistic career.
“Colombia and the world say goodbye to him with sadness in their hearts, but with immense gratitude for the immeasurable legacy that he leaves to humanity. The master Fernando Botero sowed in thousands of people the love and dedication for painting, sculpture, inspiration, sensitivity and generosity that he transmitted in each of his works,” Ordoñez expressed before Botero’s family and the other attendees. .
After some readings by Monsignor Sergio Pulido, parish priest and archbishopric delegate, the turn was for the president of the House of Representatives, Andrés David Calle, and the president of the Senate of the Republic, Iván Leonidas Name, who also highlighted the “universal” artistic work ” by maestro Botero and the legacy he left the country and the world.
“Today we are overcome with a deep feeling of nostalgia, but also of gratitude. Of nostalgia for the departure of the great master, and gratitude for the great legacy of art and culture that he leaves us. (…) Today we immerse ourselves in nostalgia in the silence that the brush leaves when it rests, to celebrate the life and legacy of a titan of art, the incomparable Fernando Botero,” said Calle.
The president of the Senate of the Republic, for his part, stated: “Today is a day in which we could not sing the first verse of the anthem because we were saddened. (…) We did not know how to say goodbye, here we have said goodbye to mortals, to the heroic Colombians, but we had never said goodbye to a universal man, (…) to a man who stopped the world for a moment and did not do it with word of the politics of oratory, of power, of governments, but he did it with a brush and with his hands.”
“All praise for Maestro Botero will be insufficient. Now comes his legend, not only Colombia but the world will keep it,” added Name.
“A gift that does not hurt is not a good gift”: Lina Botero at the farewell of her father Fernando Botero
The most emotional words came from Fernando Botero’s daughter, Lina Botero Zea, whose voice broke as she recalled her father’s artistic career, and the legacy he left in the art world as the “images of his childhood and adolescence growing towards the 40s” and his “personal and unique style (…) for him the beauty and sensuality of art lies in the exaltation of volume.”
“My dad leaves us many lessons, in particular, his example of life. I always admired his courage and congruence. I admired in him that from an early age he recognized his direction and remained faithful to it,” said Lina Botero, remembering that at only 15 years old her father ventured into the world of art, “despite the fact that his mother predicted that he would die of hunger”.
While remembering the donations that her father made to the Botero Museum in Bogotá and the Antioquia Museum in Medellín, the daughter of the Antioquia artist’s voice broke remembering the moment in which her father was preparing the works that he would donate to Colombia.
“He always told me that this was the smartest and wisest decision he ever made, because what he donated had been returned to him multiplied a thousand times by something much more important than money: the affection and recognition of people,” he said. Botero Zea.
Next, and with a broken voice, Maestro Botero’s daughter continued: “When he was taking down the works from his own walls, leaving them clean, I asked him ‘why don’t you give everything away and leave at least these?’, and I asked him. replied: ‘Because a gift that doesn’t hurt is not a good gift.’ That phrase stayed in my memory forever.” With Infobae
