DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957, Mexico)
About Rivera:
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Diego Rivera was born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico. His passion for art
emerged early on. He began drawing as a child. Around the age of 10, Rivera went to
study art at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City.
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In 1907, Rivera traveled to Europe to further his art studies. There, he befriended many
leading artists of the day, including Pablo Picasso. Rivera was also able to view
influential works by Paul Gaugin and Henri Matisse, among others. But, he returned to
Mexico in 1921 to become actively involved in its politics.
The Mexican Muralism:
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Mexican muralism was the promotion of mural painting starting in the 1920s, generally
with social and political messages as part of efforts to reunify the country under the
post Mexican Revolution government. It was headed by Diego Rivera, José Clemente
Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros known as Los tres grandes.
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At the end of the Revolution the government commissioned artists to create art that
could educate the mostly illiterate masses about Mexican history. Celebrating the
Mexican people’s potential to craft the nation’s history was a key theme in Mexican
muralism.
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The muralists developed an iconography featuring atypical, non-European heroes from
the nation’s illustrious past, present, and future—Aztec warriors battling the Spanish,
humble peasants fighting in the Revolution, common laborers of Mexico City, and the
mixed-race people who will forge the next great epoch, like in Siqueiros’ UNAM
mural. Los tres grandes crafted epic murals on the walls of highly visible, public buildings
using techniques like fresco, encaustic, mosaic, and sculpture-painting.
The Impact of the Movement:
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At the end of the Revolution the government commissioned artists to create art that
could educate the mostly illiterate masses about Mexican history. Celebrating the
Mexican people’s potential to craft the nation’s history was a key theme in Mexican
muralism.
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Rivera joined the Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors and
he started to only paint his murals in fresco. Rivera believed that painting murals on the
walls of public buildings made art accessible to the everyday man.
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His murals focused on telling stories that dealt with Mexican society and referenced the
revolution of 1910. It featured large forms, bright colors and recurring images of
farmers, laborers, popular Mexican figures and depictions of earth. He rose to
international success with his vivid and beautiful compositions, alongside fellow
Mexicans David Alfaro Siquieros and José Clemente Orozco.
Rivera’s Importance in Art History:
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By the late 1920s, Rivera’s murals were well-known in the United States.
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Rivera became known as one of the leading artists in the 20th century. Not only in the
US, where much of his work was debated, and even destroyed, but around the world.
Since he took a worldly view on art, and depicted controversial scenes which depicted
different forms of politics, which were not established around the world, many of his art
pieces were quite unique, and were distinct in nature from the work which other
muralists had done.
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Rivera revived the fresco technique, which had not been used extensively for centuries.
Influences:
Influence by the simple, outlined forms of Gauguin and his own cultural heritage of Mayan and
Aztec sculpture.
Rivera’s Characteristics:
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His artworks always has to do with his Mexican culture
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Simplified forms and shapes
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Everything is outlined
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Distorted looking figures
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Bright colors
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Aztec themes
Liberation of the Peon, 1931. Fresco.
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His Mexican culture.
Simplified forms and shapes
Everything is outlined
Use of bright colors
The Culture of Totonaken, detail of Totonac nobility trading with Aztec
merchants, 1950
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Aztec theme
Simplified forms and shapes
Everything is outlined
Bright colors
Distortion
Diego Rivera, the Making of a Fresco, 1931
 The giant helmeted worker in the
background is the symbol of a
technologically planned and workercontrolled industrial city.
 Simplified forms
 Everything is outlined
 Bright colors