Diego Rivera As An Artist And A Person

This paper is going to discuss the artist known as Diego Rivera. It is going to cover a bit about Rivera as an artist and a person. The beginning is going to cover who Diego Rivera was from birth to death. My goal in this paper is to inform people on what kind of artist Diego Rivera was and what his styles were throughout his years on Earth. After that, two pieces of art work he created will be examine and analyzed. The first piece of work is a painting called View of Toledo, 1912, Oil on Canvas. The second piece of art work is a mural called Creation, 1922-1923, Fresco Mural. After looking at the two different pieces of art you will be able to see how amazing this artist was to be able to master completely difference styles in such a short
period of time.
Diego Rivera was born in Mexico back in 1886.
He began working and drawing at a very young age of ten. In 1907 he went to the San Carlos Academy of Fine Art in Mexico City. He continued his education in Europe after that. He lived in Paris, France from the summer of 1911 until the winter of 1920. He traveled to other countries throughout this time as well. During this time, he met with some other famous artists, such as Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso (Souter). In his early years Rivera’s work was greatly influenced by a style of art known as cubism. This form of art was created by Pablo Picasso and George Braque around 1910. This style of art reduced objects into geometric forms then would align the objects back in a shallow space using many separate points. The style would take normal objects and create them in their art more in a shape than its realistic form (Rewald).
During his stay in Europe, he studies were largely influenced by Paul Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin. The work Rivera created during these times was diverse in many ways. He used mathematical equations that he learned from San Carlos throughout his
work.
During the years of 1913 to 1918, Rivera created his work entirely to cubism. Some of the masterpieces he created were Landscape at Toledo, 1913, Two Women, 1914, Portrait of Ramon Gomez, 1915, Motherhood Angelina and the Child Diego, 1916, and Still Life, 1918 (Anonymous). Rivera did not like that only the rich could enjoy art work. He believed that all people should be able to enjoy the beauty that art has to offer.
Sometime in between 1917-1918, Rivera started to go away from the cubism style and eventually drop it completely.
It is not stated or known why he decided to go away and reject this style of art. Some believe the Russian Revolution had a part to play in his rejection of the cubism style in such a short period of time (Roberts). Both the Russian and Mexican Revolution had an impact on Rivera and he started to take an interest in large murals that show people going through daily struggles.
After returning to Mexico, Rivera continued created works of art. In 1922, he requested and was granted funding by the government to work on public buildings. Rivera’s first mural was called Creation. 1922-1923. It was completely government-commissioned and took a year for him to finish this thousand square foot mural (Moss). Rivera got married to another artist named Frida Kahlo in 1929. They did not have children of their own but Rivera had several children from previous marriages and relationships (Souter).
Diego Rivera continued his career in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. His murals during this time where seen by the public as radical figures. He used the widely debated conflicts in capitalist and socialist views in his art. In the 1940s he returned to work for the government and doing work on murals in San Francisco. One of his last pieces of art was a mural called A History of Medicine, 1953
(Souter).
Diego Rivera works were considered controversial in nature all around the world. Much of his work was debated upon and some even destroyed because of the controversial political scenes he created in his murals. Even if you do not agree with his political stance presented in his work, Diego Rivera is known as one of the greatest and renowned artists that were around during this era in history. He was able to mix his creativity and mathematical abilities with his humanistic understanding to create masterpieces.
Looking at Diego Rivera’s history and accomplishments, one can see how much his artwork changed over the years. He was able to learn two different styles of art on canvas. Then he was such a skillful master he created huge thousand square foot mural that used yet a different style of art. We are going to examine and analyze two pieces of Rivera’s art work now.
The first is a painting by Rivera called View of Toledo, 1912. The painting was created before Rivera mastered his style of cubism all the way. Throughout the painting there are a few geometrical shapes that show large amounts of influences of the cubism art work style. The painting is considered to be a cityscape genre piece of art. Rivera used oils on a canvas with the dimensions of 112 centimeters by 91 centimeters (Olga).
The painting was created by Rivera as a tribute piece of art for his two favorite art masters at this time in his life. Their names were El Greco and Paul Cezanne. This cityscape genre painting is a rework of the famous landscape painting created masterfully by El Greco called View of Toledo, 1597. During his time in Spain, Rivera studied this artist and even uses the same view point to be inspired for this cubism style painting. Paul Cezanne inspired Rivera by using a subdued palette and unconventional use of perspective. These are things Rivera studied and learned to do from the art master Cezanne. This piece also is what started Diego Rivera into his era of his cubism style works (Souter).
The first thing you see when viewing the painting is the background of the sky, river and river bank. The sky and river is drawn with contour lines. They are drawn to show the flow of the painting. You can see the cubism style stick out just in the background portion of this painting. When looking at just the background there is white circle in the middle and when reaching the corners of the canvas it slowly gains more blue in color.
The middle of the painting is the city of Toledo, Spain, which is the main focus for this painting. It looks like the building on the top left is the start of it all and the painting flourishes and fans out from this point. When looking at the painting, your focus tends to go to this building in the top left. Rivera style does this for a reason. The art work style cubism uses certain points to give perspective to a piece of art. This is how furthering their education and learning different mathematical solutions helped artist achieve this type of skill for art work back in this time.
Each shape throughout the painting is intensified by the way Rivera shadowed his buildings. It seems like the painting as a whole is slightly faded. There is no emphasis on detail to be seen anywhere throughout the painting. The types of colors used also helps blend the painting and causes less detail to be shown throughout. It would seem that Rivera did this to show how people pass by this beautifully landscaped area and city every day and do not show attention to the detail. From where he is sitting looking at the city, Rivera could have seen all kinds of details in the different buildings, streets, trees and sides of the hills. He left all those details out of this painting to express how people just see a city. It is not seen as a piece of art but as a way of life. The city is needed to live and therefore it is not admired in detail. It is a necessity. Rivera does not include silhouettes of people living daily lives in the city as well. He drew this painting from memory and you can see that is how it is portrayed. It seems like life has stopped everywhere in this city and this is just a frozen screenshot of it.
The next piece of art is not a painting but a mural. It is Diego Rivera’s first mural and one of his first pieces of art when he finished working on cubism style art works. The piece of art is called Creation, 1922-1923. This was a large mural for Rivera to complete. It was 474 centimeters by 366 centimeters. The technique used for this mural was fresco. After this he continued to only use fresco in all of his murals. This mural was categorized as a muralism style of art. This mural was his very first and ended up being a start for Mexican Muralism. It was created to show the history of humans over time in a shorter, condensed version. It was showing the joining of Mexican, Christian and Hellenic motifs. Many concepts are showed throughout the mural a few of them are Science, Charity, Hope, Education and Faith.
When looking at the mural for the first time, the background is a regular landscape. There is dirt and grass on the bottom that lead up to a sky. When looking at just the background there is nothing that stands out to much. Then you notice the sun seems to be set up as a clock for time. The mural is then seen as three separate statements or sections.
The figures shown in the mural are over twelve feet in height. This was done to make the figures proportional to the pipe organ which encompassed the wall. At the top we see the symbol of the creative sun also known as the Divine Trinity. The lower left has Eve and the bottom right has Adam from the Christianity religion. Above Adam and Eve on the left and right side, Rivera placed the nine muses. These represent the concepts previously stated. The muses above Eve are Love, Hope and Faith. Prudence, Justice and Strength are on the side with Adam. On the top center of the mural are Wisdom and Science. Looking more into this mural, it is easy to see this is a religion theme piece of art work. It does not sure a political or ideological theme anywhere throughout the mural.
The two masterpieces from Diego Rivera that were examine were View of Toledo, 1912, Oil on canvas and Creation, 1922-1923, Fresco mural. Each one showed a different type of style Rivera was able to do. Diego Rivera, View of Toledo, 1912, showed him while he was in his cubism style era. Only a decade later, Rivera does another masterpiece Creation, 1922-1923, in a different style called muralism. Diego Rivera was a very skillful and accomplished artist. It is no wonder why he is still to this day considered one of the best artists of the twentieth century