Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera is considered the father of Mexican mural art and the father of modern political art in Mexico. Diego reinterpreted Mexican history from a revolutionary and nationalistic point of view. Not only did Diego expressed powerful ideas in his murals, but he also applied the tools he learned with modernist techniques. More than any other artist, Diego Rivera provided models for incorporating cultural past and ethnic identity into an alternative modernist vision, one that provided for a responsible fusion of the social and the aesthetic. Diego was an important personality in the art world of the 20th century and his thoughts were well respected in the art community. He was an innovator in expressing his ideals unifying art and politics.

Diego Marнa de la Rivera y Barrientos and his twin brother Carlos were born on December 13, 1886 in Leon, Guanajuato. Carlos died in 1888, which left Diego as an only child. Since he was very young (he begins to draw at the age of three), he loved to paint, so much that his father covered a room of their house in Guanajuato with paper so that the child could paint all over the walls. Diego says that it was in that room where he created his first murals.

In 1896, while he was still in high-school, he entered the Academy of San Carlos. He was so obviously talented that in 1906, after his first show, he was granted a four year scholarship from the governor of Veracruz, Teodoro Dahesa, to continue his studies in Europe. In 1907 he goes to Spain, where he promptly becomes part of the intellectual circles. After studying there for two years he moves to Paris and starts living with Angelina Beloff.

Angelina Belloff was a Russian йmigrй artist. Diego met her in Spain among the artistic circles. Diego and Angelina had a son but due to an flu epidemic the child died in the fall of 1918. Diego had many lovers, among them was Marvena, another Russian woman. Diego and Marvena had a child named Marika right after the death of Angelina's baby. Diego precisely describes his relationship with Angelina when he says "She gave me everything a woman can give to a man. In return, she received from me all the heartache and misery that a man can inflict upon a woman" In June of 1921 Rivera left Belloff in Paris and goes to Mexico, saying that once he is established he will send for Angelina. He never does and they do not see each other again until many years later and by pure chance.

While studying in Spain, Rivera was fascinated by the works of Cezanne, who introduced him to cubism. He was also very interested in Mondrian and created many paintings reproducing his style. His greatest influence, however, was Pablo Picasso's. Diego was interested in cubism because it questioned the pre-established conceptions of painting. With his cubist work, such as "Zapatista Landscape," " Woman at the Well" and "Sailor at Lunch," Rivera earned recognition among the artistic circles in Paris. This technique, however, did not fulfill him completely because he felt a lack of originality in his work. He was following Picasso's trend and felt that he would never be like him. This is why he decides to find his own style by going back to a more realistic way of painting. The most prominent critic of the time, Pierre Reverdy, did not appreciate Rivera's change of style, and neither did Leonce Rosemberg, his art dealer. The art community abandoned Diego, which left him in absolute poverty because no one would buy his paintings. This decision proved costly to his reputation as a modernist, but not to the evolution of his aesthetics. The situation, however, forced Diego to go back to Mexico on July of 1921.

Diego Rivera's style, was the product of the influence of many different art styles, such as cubism, impressionism, classical European style and Aztec art. His murals had a busyness that remind us the Baroque, covering Churches with images and details. Some critics referred to Diego's particular style as "agoraphobic" because he seemed to be afraid of having open space in his paintings. In his murals he uses many symbols that come from Aztec codices. For example, he uses the colors and figures of idols, as well as the way in which the Indians used images to narrate myths and historical events. In some of his work we can see a use of space that comes from cubism (in Creation, for example) and a use of perspective that comes from his early classical studies. In the sketches of the murals we can see how he used architectural skills as well as a lot of geometry. Rivera was a very skilled painter, and as Josй Vasconcelos says, "everything could be forgiven to Diego because he knew how to paint with exact drawing and perfect coloring when he wanted"

The birth of Mexican mural art in the 1920's was one of the most revolutionary events the government has done for the country because it recognized the power of political art. The new regime had a general consciousness of the power of art as an agent of change and subversion. The movement of Mexican mural art was a new kind of Modernism, it did not use the modern styles, like cubism and surrealism. Instead, its innovative quality was to go back to realism to express revolutionary thoughts. The style used in them was in many ways a contradiction. As Octavio Paz says "The Mexican mural movement on the one hand is the consequence of European artistic movements of the early years of the century; on the other, it is a response to those movements that...is a negation of them as well". It is a common quality of rebellion in art to criticize by using the elements of what is being criticized. In Europe, modernism was a movement against the established rules of how to create art. In Latin America, however, modernism was also influenced by the social revolutions occurring in many Latin American countries, such as Mexico. In the midst of social chaos, Art served a social function to communicate the ideas of the revolution to the people .

The impact of the Mexican Revolution was immense, and the activities of the Mexican mural painters in interpreting and disseminating the ideals of the Revolution, in promoting the idea of an art for the people, and in helping to realize a cultural nationalism under revolutionary conditions were felt far beyond Mexico itself, and were important factors in contemporary cultural and artistic debates.

Diego's second wife was Guadalupe Marнn