Mexico's Greatest Artist

           

            In the early 1900's Mexico went through a huge change from mostly rural, semi-literate revolutionary society to a developed, industrialized modern nation. (Rochford, Desmond. Mexican Muralist, pg. 11). Diaz's presidency from1876-1910 changed the structure of Mexico's society and economy. 90% of Mexico's peasants were landless. Because of Diaz's desire to launch his country into the twentieth century he allowed many foreign investors to supplant the nation's budgetary needs. Diaz's rule over Mexico simply crumbled apart from under him. Because of his departure this left a massive power gap creating great conflict between all opposing sides and there were many. This power struggle met with much bloodshed, during this era of revolution a million Mexicans died. All of this political upheaval had a huge effect on Diego

            This is the world Diego Rivera was born into on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato City, Guanajuato Mexico. Diego's father had joined the Mexican army to fight against Napoleon III after that he became an elementary school teacher.

Diego was a twin; his brother's name was Carlos who died at eighteen months.

Diego's mother was one of the first women to graduate from medical school as an obstetrician. Diego's father was heavily anti-Catholic and did not allow Diego to attend church

            By age eleven, it was evident that Diego was not cut out for catholic school which was his mother's wish, or military school which were his father's wishes. He had one passion, art, he finally got a shot realizing his dream when his parents allowed him to attend the San Carlos Academy; "one of the foremost schools in the country" (Litwin, Laura Baskes. Diego Rivera: Legendary Mexican Painter, pg. 20).  When eighteen Diego had graduated from San Carlos with many honors and at age twenty he went over to Spain by the encouragement and support of Dr. Atl and a scholarship committee. He studied in Madrid, taught by Eduardo Chicharro. He studied some of Spain's finest artist like Goya, El Greco, and Velazquez as well as Spain's scenery. As Chicharro's student, he did extensive traveling painting streets and landscapes of Spain.

            After his two years in Spain, Diego started taking classes in Paris, France. This is where he met Angelina Beloff, who was a beautiful and talented art student who had studied with Paul Cezanne and was several years his senior. But that did not stop him; he instantly fell in love with her. After the first year of study Diego meet up with a good friend he had made in Spain, Maria Blanchard. She, Diego, and Angelina decided to do some traveling in their vacation time. Before classes started again, all three went to London and for the first time he saw the factories and realized the abject poverty of his people. The wealth in London contrasted bitterly with the poverty of his own Mexican people. It was also in London that Diego professed his to love to Angelina. At first she was taken aback and needed time to think.

            In 1910, Rivera's work was selected to be shown in the famous Salon Des Independants, this was a very big deal for a young artist like himself, and this also extended his scholarship funds. He had been gone from Mexico for four years and requested some time off to come back to Mexico from his scholarship committee, they granted his request. At this time Angelina and Diego decided to spend some time away from each other to consider their relationship. On his return, Rivera was given his first one-man show at his old school of San Carlos. The show was so successful half of his paintings sold and one was bought by the wife of Porfirio Diaz the current dictator of Mexico. Little did Diego realize that in six months time the Mexican revolution would start and his government funds would soon dry up.

            When the revolution began instead of taking up arms Rivera went to the country side of Mexico to paint. He then returned to Paris to be reunited in love with Angelina Beloff, who then reciprocated his love. They began living together and moved to a neighborhood called Montparnasse. This was an epicenter for many other artists, writers, and poets. The café lifestyle and beautiful scenery was what attracted them.

The community attracted such great artists such as Pablo Picasso who was a close neighbor to Rivera. He highly admired Picasso and his style; this is what first got him into the cubist style and movement. His chance finally came to meet Picasso; Pablo sent a messenger and demanded to meet with the budding artist. He was more than happy to accommodate, they had dinner and became fast friends. Because of this meeting and friendship Rivera's paintings became highly respected among the art community.

            Europe was now in the pangs of world war one, because of the dangers and lack of money Diego took Angelina to an isolated island called Majorca off the coast of Spain. But they were broke and after three months of bliss on this isolated island Angelina received an opportunity in Barcelona, they returned to Montparnasse. Incredibly the small community experienced some small, but no real effects of the war, Diego went on painting. It was during this time that many critics say that Rivera painted his greatest cubist painting of his career. The painting was called the "Zapatista landscape" and Rivera described his painting as "Probably the most faithful expression of the Mexican mood that I have ever achieved." This painting had a huge effect in two ways on his life and career. First, the painting was a massive endorsement for the revolutionaries in Mexico. Rivera was showing his support for the movement, this would push him in the direction of painting politically motivated paintings, which he would do for the rest of his career. Second, this painting caught the attention of a man named Leonce Rosenberg. Rosenberg was kind of an agent for very famous artists including Picasso.

            Rosenberg offered to represent Rivera and he agreed he was now under contract to produce four canvases a month to a dealer. This gave him a stable income and a chance to start a family with Angelina; they had their first child, Diguito on August 1916. Life was good for Diego at this point, he was becoming nationally acclaimed for his cubist paintings and a lot of his work was being sold. Then he decided to experiment with new styles other than cubism, he thought that he received all that he could get from the cubist style and wanted to explore alternative techniques. Rosenberg wanted him to only paint cubist paintings. He and Rosenberg split, money and food became scarce in Europe from WWI and Diguito died at fourteen months old. Diego's split with Rosenberg was not the only relationship that he severed, because of the baby's death and Diego's year long love affair with another woman that produced a daughter, Morika. This greatly strained his relationship with Angelina. Angelina once said at the end of Rivera's life, "He has never been a vicious man, but simply an amoral one. His paintings [are] all he has ever lived for and deeply loved."

            1918, WWI ended and with that a new phase in Rivera's art had just started. Taking the advice of one a friend, he went to Italy to see the art of the fifteenth century masters. This is where he saw the Fresco style of painting that was done with wet plaster. This technique would be one of the biggest influences on his work in the near future. But for now after his trip Diego wanted to return home, which he did in 1921. When he arrived home, Mexico had seen ten years of bloodshed and new governments, but President Obregon was now in office and wanted to rebuild. Part of this rebuilding included endorsements for the Mexican art scene. Rivera couldn’t have come home at a better time, he was offered a teaching position in a university, but Rivera wanted a job of mural painter for public buildings. It was during this time that Rivera went on a trip through the Yucatan seeing the Mayan ruins and remains of its culture. It was also at this time that his father died, this had a crushing effect on him.

            Diego got the mural painting position he had hoped for and his first job was in a lecture hall in the National Preparatory school. While doing this year long project he married his model Guadalupe Marin in June 1922. This was also a period in which he became politically active and conscientious. His communist views have a prevalent place in most of his work and especially in his murals. "Los Tres Grandes" or the Big Three (DR, LMP pg 55) at this time came together to create some of the most profound murals the world had ever seen. Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco all three united in their communist ideals and cause feeding off each others political fervor and artistic abilities.

            Diego was now given a job painting the Ministry of Education Building; he was to paint 128 walls in the building. The entire task took his four years and by the end of that time he had completely mastered fresco style of painting and was Mexico's foremost painter. In 1926 while doing some painting on his scaffold he was intrigued by a persistent young 20 year woman named Frida Khalo. The young artist asking to have her work evaluated intrigued Diego. By 1927 Rivera had divorced Guadalupe, and in 1928 he was married to Frida. They were what you would call an odd couple he being six foot tall and weighing 200 pounds more than Frida, they were often called "The Elephant and the Dove."(DR, LMP, pg 65). In the same year of his marriage to Frida Khalo he was commissioned to paint a mural in the National Palace, this offer once again cemented his position as the greatest painter in Mexico. He also received another huge commission from the Palace of Cortés to paint a mural for the United States, which would then be given to Mexican government as a gift. Because of these two commissions Rivera was expelled from the communist party for taking business with capitalists.

            In 1930 Rivera was offered two major commissions in the United States one was to paint a wall in the Californian School of Fine Arts and the second was to paint a mural in a restaurant which was in the San Francisco Stock Exchange. He and Frida make their way to San Francisco, causing quite a stir at their arrival even the famed photographer Ansel Adams came out to photograph them. This trip to California and the two murals marked not so much a change, but an evolution in his painting. He was fascinated by machinery and he started to include them in these two murals. Rivera finished his mural in May 1931 and returned to Mexico to continue his work on the National Palace. While working a representative from the Museum of Modern Art in New York asked him if he would like to have his own one man show. Rivera readily agreed, later saying "To every modern artist, this is the pinnacle of professional success" (DR, LMP, pg. 77).

            When he arrived in New York he was overwhelmed by the mass poverty caused by the Great Depression. He painted his first impressions, thoughts and emotions of New York in a painting called "Frozen Assets."  It depicts the stark separation between the rich and poor while mass technological and structural progress was being made. The painting was a chilling, but honest portrayal of the average person's life in New York at the time. Because he could not show his murals in the show, he replicated some on to portable canvases. He had about 150 pieces being shown and it was a huge success. The public poured into the Museum to look at the Mexican artists work. Diego Rivera was an unfamiliar name in America, but after the publics, Medias and arts enthusiasts' positive reaction to his work, Rivera became a world wide hit.

            Because of his show in New York Edsel Ford wanted Rivera to paint a mural series in a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan. He would get paid $15,000 which was quite a sum for that time and especially during the Great Depression.  Once again he got to dabble in his interest of machinery. Rivera would spend 8-16 hours a day painting rarely taking a break. Frida was often left alone to deal with the pain of her recent miscarriage and the fact that her mother was dying. This was the main reason why she left for Mexico to visit her dying mother. It was also during this time that Rivera's two old friends Siqueiros and Orozco were painting murals in the United States, but they could not contend with Rivera for fame. In 1933 he finished his work and the couple returns to Mexico for some rest.

            Due to some medical problems and a fiasco that happened when he painted the communist leader Lenin into one of his murals for the Rockefeller building causing uproar, he was suffering from depression and malnutrition. To take his mind off the pain he painted a mural in the Hotel Reforma in Mexico, 1936. In the painting Rivera mocked a government official and tourists, the Hotel complained and attempted to paint over the controversial sections of the painting. A court battle ensued, Diego won, but the Hotel refused to show the painting. This took a huge toll on Diego and he then decided to not paint anymore murals and he wouldn’t for six more years. Now he turned his attention to painting portraits for the Mexican socialites and elitists, which turned out for a good payout, less work requiring no assistants and especially no controversy. Also during this time Rivera painted many of the common and poor Mexican people. This period in his painting reflected his love for the poor and indigenous people of Mexico.

            In August if 1940 Rivera accepted a commission for a mural in San Francisco. He happily accepted because he feared for his life and wanted to flee the country. A few years back Stalin and Trotsky split, then Stalin wanted Trotsky's death. Rivera obtained asylum and a house for Trotsky in Mexico. He stayed in Frida's childhood house, while staying there with his wife Trotsky had an affair with Frida. She then left to do a one-man show in New York, when she came back Rivera wanted a divorce. Trotsky was killed by Stalin's assassins and Rivera feared that he was next; this is why he was more than happy to take the job in San Francisco.

            On December 8, 1940 Diego and Frida remarried. Jumping ahead in Diego's life we now see Rivera as a sixty year old man in 1947. Rivera has just finished one of his biggest murals yet "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park."  The painting is fifty feet long and sixteen feet high. The mural includes important historical and personal facts about his experiences of Mexico's history and of his own life. This painting is a short history of Rivera's life and all whose who had an important impact upon him. The painting was praised as one of his greatest murals, not so much for his skill at painting, but for his ability to tell a story.

            On July 13, 1954 Frida died and Rivera remembered it as one of the saddest days of his life. In 1955 Rivera married Emma Hurtado. After his marriage he was diagnosed with cancer. After seeking out medical attention in the Soviet Union and declaring that he was a catholic he died on November 24, 1957.

            Diego Rivera at an early age was instilled with a passion to fight and represent those who could not provide and defend for themselves. Through a process of life experiences he learned to use his art as form of communication to tell the story of his life, political views, of the Mexican culture and people. Even though Rivera never took up arms in a revolution he was a revolution in his own right. And he will always be regarded as the greatest painter of Mexico, giving the Mexican people more than just great art, but also a sense of pride in their own national identity.