Flower Pot 1974

This is Fernando Botero’s ‘Flower Pot’, and just looking at it, I can imagine him building up the surface, bit by bit, color by color, touch by touch. It’s a whole lotta flowers, isn't it? What must it have been like, the sheer labor of depicting all of them in their round abundance. I can see Botero getting into the meditative, almost obsessive process of building up the surface. The colors! Yellows, oranges, pinks, reds, all kinda fighting for attention, making this incredible, impossible bouquet. It makes me think about other painters who go big on flowers, like Redon. But here, the flowers are bursting with life, almost cartoonish. These flowers have volume, a kind of inflated reality. It's like he’s saying, "Let's see how much beauty we can cram into one pot!" That's the thing about painting, it's this ongoing conversation across time, where one artist inspires another to see, feel, and express the world in their unique way.