Fernando Botero Quotes

The true symbolism of every facet of 'Guernica' can only be guessed at, but we do know that it haunted Picasso.

I think art can reflect tragedy.

It is difficult to make political art work.

Political art expresses the cliches you agree with, unlike propaganda, which expresses the cliches you don't.

There arose a belief in style - and in banality. Banality encompassed politics, too, because it was a common belief that politics were not worthy of art.

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

The power of the story sheds a light and great perspective on well known facts. The power of cinema draws on that collective history.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political.

To do art, one thing should always remember - subjects of people in misery have deep meanings.

I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Art is not something to decorate a wall. Art is a political weapon.

All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.

I do not believe that any work of art can help but be diminished by its adherence at any cost to a political program ... and not for any other reason than that there is no political program -- any more than there is a theory of tragedy -- which can encompass the complexities of real life.

I feel that art deals with issues way before any political organisation.

The artist is the consciousness of society... but musicians' role is very special.

Artists have been very good at working for the church and for the state; communicating the aspirations of a society.

I believe that art can make relevant and progressive contributions to culture and society.

So much of the history of painting is the propaganda of self-aggrandizement.

'Narcos' was a very strong experience, not only artistically and politically, but as a human being.

In every domain of art, a work that corresponds to the need of its day carries a message of social and cultural value. It is the artist who crystallizes his age ... who fixes his time in history.

A German officer visited Picasso in his Paris studio during the Second World War. There he saw Guernica and, shocked at the modernist «chaos» of the painting, asked Picasso: «Did you do this?» Picasso calmly replied: «No, you did this!»

In the largest sense, every work of art is protest... A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it... A hymn is a controversial song - sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out...

All of a sudden I got a vision of Guernica - Pablo Picasso's painting, which is one of my all-time favorite paintings in the world. I remember reading that it was very controversial at the time - some people said even used the word "childlike drawing" - and all of a sudden I thought, "This is like Guernica in Los Angeles!" And then it all made sense to me. It was all the elements that are the Southland.