What Age Did Diego Rivera Died Which Is the Theme That Reflects the Art of Diego Rivera

"When fine art is truthful, it is one with nature. This is the undercover of archaic fine art and also of the fine art of the masters—Michelangelo, Cézanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my all-time work is that it is Mexican.."

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"... (Cubism) was a revolutionary movement, questioning everything that had previously been said and done in fine art. Information technology held cypher sacred. As the old word would soon accident itself apart, never to be the same again, so Cubism broke downwards the forms as they had been seen for centuries, and was creating out of the fragments new forms, new objects, new patters and—ultimately—new worlds."

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"All inner doubt, the disharmonize that had so tortured me in Europe, had disappeared. I painted as naturally as I breathed, spoke or sweated. My style was born like a child, in a moment, with the difference that this nascency took place at the end of a painful, 35-twelvemonth gestation."

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"The marching mass... had the floating move of a snake, but it was more than crawly... At the head of this winding, undulating brute mass was a group in the form of an enormous locomotive. A big red star and 5 picks were over the "cylinder" of the "banality". The "headlight" was an enormous inscription between ii flags: THE UNIONS ARE THE LOCOMOTIVES MOVING THE Railroad train OF THE REVOLUTION. THE CORRECT REVOLUTIONARY THEORY IS THE STEEL Rail."

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Summary of Diego Rivera

Widely regarded every bit the most influential Mexican artist of the 20^th century, Diego Rivera was truly a larger-than-life figure who spent significant periods of his career in Europe and the U.Southward., in addition to his native Mexico. Together with David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, Rivera was among the leading members and founders of the Mexican Muralist movement. Deploying a style informed by disparate sources such every bit European modernistic masters and Mexico's pre-Columbian heritage, and executed in the technique of Italian fresco painting, Rivera handled major themes appropriate to the scale of his chosen fine art grade: social inequality; the relationship of nature, industry, and engineering; and the history and fate of Mexico. More half a century after his death, Rivera is still among the most revered figures in United mexican states, celebrated for both his function in the land's artistic renaissance and re-invigoration of the mural genre as well equally for his outsized persona.

Accomplishments

• Rivera fabricated the painting of murals his main method, affectionate the large scale and public accessibility—the opposite of what he regarded as the elitist character of paintings in galleries and museums. Rivera used the walls of universities and other public buildings throughout Mexico and the United States as his canvas, creating an extraordinary body of piece of work that revived involvement in the landscape as an fine art course and helped reinvent the concept of public art in the U.S. by paving the way for the Federal Fine art Program of the 1930s.
• Mexican civilization and history constituted the major themes and influence on Rivera'southward fine art. Rivera, who amassed an enormous collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, created panoramic portrayals of Mexican history and daily life, from its Mayan beginnings upwards to the Mexican Revolution and mail-Revolutionary present, in a style largely indebted to pre-Columbian culture.
• A lifelong Marxist who belonged to the Mexican Communist Political party and had important ties to the Soviet Union, Rivera is an exemplar of the socially committed artist. His art expressed his outspoken commitment to left-wing political causes, depicting such subjects as the Mexican peasantry, American workers, and revolutionary figures like Emiliano Zapata and Lenin. At times, his outspoken, uncompromising leftist politics collided with the wishes of wealthy patrons and aroused significant controversy that emanated within and outside the art world.

Biography of Diego Rivera

When Diego Rivera first returned dwelling to Mexico from his artistic studies in France, he was and so overcome with joy that he fainted. Later, he said, "Great art is similar a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a torso, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own .. The secret of my best work is that information technology is Mexican."

Of import Art by Diego Rivera

Progression of Art

1912

View of Toledo

A stunning tribute to two of Rivera's favorite masters—El Greco and Paul Cézanne— View of Toledo exemplifies Rivera's tendency to unite traditional and more modernistic approaches in his work. The landscape is a reworking of the famous 1597 mural painting by El Greco, whose piece of work Rivera studied during his fourth dimension in Spain; Rivera'south version even deploys the same viewpoint as the Spanish Onetime Chief. At the same time, the subdued palette, flattened forms, and unconventional employ of perspective suggest the creative person'due south reverence for Cézanne, his L'Estaque landscapes. This artwork besides documents the beginning of Rivera's Cubist phase.

Oil on canvass - Fundacion Amparo R. de Espinosa, Puebla

1915

Zapatista Landscape - The Guerrilla

In this work, painted during Rivera'south sojourn in Paris, the creative person deployed Cubism—a mode he once characterized as a "revolutionary move"—to describe the Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata, here seen with attributes such as a rifle, bandolier, hat, and sarape. The work's collage-like arroyo is suggestive of the Synthetic rather than Analytic phase of Cubism. Executed at the elevation of the Mexican Revolution, the painting—subsequently described by its creator as "probably the most faithful expression of the Mexican mood that I have e'er achieved"—manifests the increasing politicization of Rivera's piece of work.

Oil on canvas - Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico Urban center

1916

Motherhood - Angelina and the Kid

Motherhood is a modernizing, Cubist treatment on a perennial fine art historical theme: the Madonna and Child. In this painting, Angelina Beloff, Rivera's common-law wife for twelve years, holds their newborn son, Diego, who died of influenza only months later his nascence. The painting beautifully illustrates Rivera's unique arroyo to Cubism, which rejected the somber, monochromatic palette deployed by artists such every bit Pablo Picasso or Georges Braque in favor of brilliant colors more reminiscent of those used by Italian Futurist artists similar Gino Severini or Giacomo Balla.

Oil on sheet - Museo de Arte Alvar y Carmen T. de Carrillo Gil, Mexico

1922-23

Creation

His kickoff committee from Mexican Minister of Education Jose Vasconcelos, Creation is the offset of Rivera'south many murals and a touchstone for Mexican Muralism. Treating, in the artist's words, "the origins of the sciences and the arts, a kind of condensed version of human history"—the work is a complex allegorical composition, combining Mexican, Judeo-Christian, and Hellenic motifs. It depicts a number of allegorical figures—among them Organized religion, Hope, Charity, Education, and Science—all seemingly represented with unmistakably Mexican features. The figure of Song was modeled on Guadalupe Marin, who afterwards became Rivera'south second wife. Through such features of the piece of work equally the use of gilt leafage and the monumental, elongated figures, the mural reflects the importance of Italian and Byzantine art for Rivera'due south development.

Fresco in encaustic with gold leaf - Museo de San Idelfonso, Mexico Urban center

1934

Man, Controller of the Universe (Human being in the Time Machine)

As its title indicates, the painting is a powerful representation of the homo race "at the crossroads" of reinforcing or competing forces and ideologies: science, industrialization, Communism, and capitalism. Revealing Rivera'southward dedication to Communism and other left-fly causes, the painting has at its centre a heroic worker surrounded by four propeller-similar blades; it contrasts a mocking portrayal of society women, seen on the left, with a sympathetic portrayal of Lenin surrounded past proletarians of different races, on the right. Commissioned by the Mexican regime, this painting is a smaller but most identical recreation of Human at the Crossroads, the Rockefeller-commissioned landscape for the soon-to-be-completed Rockefeller Center. The New York Urban center mural was destroyed a year before this work, amid controversy over Rivera's portrait of Lenin and his subsequent refusal to remove the prototype.

Fresco - Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City

1938

Portrait of Lupe Marin

In this magnificent portrait of his 2nd wife from whom he separated the previous decade, Rivera again reveals his profound creative debt to the European painting tradition. Utilizing a device deployed by such artists every bit Velazquez, Manet, and Ingres—and which Rivera would himself apply in his 1949 portrait of his daughter Ruth—he portrays his subject partially in reflection through his delineation of a mirror in the groundwork. The painting's coloration and the subject area'south expressive hands call to mind another artistic hero, El Greco, while its composition and construction suggest the art of Cézanne.

Oil on canvas - Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico Metropolis

1932-33

The Detroit Industry Fresco Cycle

The 20-seven panels comprising this cycle are a tribute to Detroit'southward manufacturing base of operations and workforce of the 1930s and institute the finest example of fresco painting in the United States. Here, Rivera takes large-scale industrial production as the subject area of the work, depicting mechanism with exceptional attention to detail and artistry. The overall iconography of the wheel reflects the duality concept of Aztec culture via the ii sides of industry: the i beneficial to society (vaccines) and the other harmful (lethal gas). Other dichotomies recur in this work, as Rivera contrasts tradition and progress, industry and nature, and North and South America. He uses multiple allegories based on the history of the continents, as well as contemporary events to build a dramatic artwork.

1947-48

Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park

Rivera revisits the theme of Mexican history in this crowded, dynamic composition, replete with meaningful portraits, historical figures, and symbolic elements. Conceived as a festive pictorial autobiography, Rivera represents himself at the middle as a child holding hands with the most celebrated of Guadalupe Posada's creations: the skeletal figure popularly known as "Calavera Catrina." He represents himself joining this quintessential symbol of Mexican popular culture and is shown to be protected by his wife, the painter Frida Kahlo, who holds in her manus the yin-yang symbol, the Eastern equivalent of Aztec duality.

The mural combines the creative person'due south own babyhood experiences with the historical events and sites that took place in Mexico City's Alameda Park, such as the crematorium for the victims of the Inquisition during the times of Cortes, the U.South. army's encampment in the park in 1848, and the major political demonstrations of the 19^th century. As in many previous works, Rivera juxtaposes historical events and figures, deliberately rejecting the Western tradition of linear narrative.

Transportable fresco - Museo Landscape Diego Rivera, Mexico Metropolis

Similar Art

Influences and Connections

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Influenced by Artist

Useful Resources on Diego Rivera

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Books

The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page. These too suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be establish and purchased via the internet.

biography

• Diego Rivera, 1886-1957: A Revolutionary Spirit in Modern Art (Taschen Basic Fine art) Our Selection

  By Andrea Kettenmann

• Dreaming with His Optics Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Discovery Series)

  By Patrick Marnham

• Diego Rivera

  By Pete Hamill

artwork

• Diego Rivera, The Complete Murals Our Pick

  By Luis Martin Lozano, Juan Coronel Rivera

• Diego Rivera: The Detroit Manufacture Murals

  Past Linda Bank Downs

• Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros Our Choice

  By Desmond Rochfort

written past artist

• My Fine art, My Life: An Autobiography (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) Our Pick

  Past Diego Rivera, Gladys March

exhibition catalog

• Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art Our Pick

  Past Leah Dickerman, Anna Indych-Lopez

Content compiled and written past The Art Story Contributors

Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors

"Diego Rivera Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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First published on 21 Jan 2012. Updated and modified regularly
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