Art at the Castle

Botero drew much of his inspiration from famous European painters to create works such as «Mona Lisa» and «Infanta Margarita», but with his own distinctive style. However, he works very little with models. He explains that this limits his artistic freedom and inhibits his imagination. Fernando Botero therefore developed a distinct style, characterised by the roundness of his figures. It was with the creation of his painting «Still Life with Mandolin» that he achieved real success. Despite their appearance, his figures generally reveal no emotion, expressing a detached impartiality. Even when painting powerful personalities, Botero maintains this attitude. His figures exude an impression of lightness, suppleness and grace, despite their corpulence. So why are his figures fat? Botero does not describe them as such, but rather as «having volume»; a magical, sensual quality that he seeks in his art, in contrast to the tendency of contemporary painting to neglect volume.

Very interested in art from an early age, Miró trained at a free academy where he aspired to paint in a colourful way. Miró developed his own artistic language, mixing abstraction and figuration, while creating dreamlike works populated with symbols such as women, birds, stars and comets. Blue was his emblematic colour, representing the sky and the sea. He wanted to be free. However, the artist insists on a certain violence associated with his desire to break away from classical codes, which he claims he wanted to «kill». This very strong word indicates that this path to liberation is the fruit of an intense personal struggle. His work has been widely recognised, particularly in the United States, where he received a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1941. In the 1960s, he contributed to the Maeght Foundation and created monumental works, while continuing to take part in major projects in Europe and the United States. The Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, established in 1975, bears witness to the artist's renowned status and singular artistic legacy.

From an early age, he showed an exceptional talent for drawing and painting. By the age of 13, he was already producing works of great skill. Pablo Picasso moved first to Barcelona to study art and then to Paris, which at the time was the centre of artistic effervescence in the early 20th century. In Paris, Picasso was influenced by the artistic movements of the time, such as post-impressionism, fauvism and cubism. It was with Georges Braque that he developed the Cubist movement, which revolutionised art by fragmenting forms and presenting multiple perspectives in a single work. Over the course of his career, Picasso experimented with a variety of artistic styles, ranging from realism to abstraction. His most famous works include «‘Les Demoiselles d'Avignon» (1907), a bold cubist painting, and «Guernica» (1937), a deeply emotional painting depicting the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Picasso was a prolific artist, creating thousands of works throughout his life. He has worked in a variety of arts, including painting, sculpture, ceramics and engraving. He also explored themes such as the human figure, sexuality and suffering, which became recurring elements in his work. At the time of his death, Pablo Picasso left behind an immense artistic legacy, having influenced generations of artists. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and innovative artists in the history of modern and contemporary art.

Discover a work by Pablo Ruiz Picasso at Château de Saint-Aubin :
• Le Repas Frugal, 1904