IRISHARTS REVIEW
EXHIBITIONS
that one does not relax for a artistic development within the frame
singlemoment.
work of his biographywhich in his case
There are other reasons: in spite of becomes an essential prerequisite to
Diego Rivera is a difficult painter to his extensive European artistic educa understanding his art. A precocious
take in and what better proof than the tion, Diego Rivera saw himself as a talent, as his earliest survivingdrawings,
long overdue retrospective centenary Mexican painterpar excellence,a painter such as the marvellous 'Head of
exhibition currently showing at the of the people at that. This worthy Woman' of 1898 (No. 73) prove, he
Hayward Gallery and until January attitude however was unfortunately also started his training at the Academy of
10th, 1988. To startwith, thisMexican, coloured by his complicated political San Carlos. A scholarship enabled him
literally and metaphorically larger than allegiances - the longstanding pre to leave in 1907 for Europe. He began
life, had an equally heroic zest for it, cariousnessof his relationshipwith the with Spain but also visited other coun
which manifested itself in a multitude Mexican Communist Party fromwhich tries, including England. In 1910 he
he was being periodically expelled only returned toMexico, only to leave again
artist
of ways, not least in a phenomenal
ic output, spanning well over half a to be readmitted,might well be sympto for Paris a year later, staying there until
century. The quantity, the stylistic and matic - not least the influence of the 1921.
In Paris he avidly assimilated what
technical diversity, the complicated Socialist Realist ideology of Soviet
the French as well as the International
multi-layered iconography, the heavily Russia. This resulted in the often un
political moralizing tone, are such as to believably opaque programmesof some avant-garde, conveniently concentrated
become bewildering. And it hits one of his mural cycles, suffering from an in Paris at that time, had to offer: we
vaccui'. see him painting likeSeurat,we see him
with a sense of urgency as soon as one
iconographicaland visual 'horror
For that reason they fail not only to painting like an 'Analytical', then like
walks into the exhibition.
Although no more comprehensive instruct in the best tradition of pro a 'Synthetic'Cubist, we see him in
than any exhibition of its kind - it con
paganda art they purport to be, but. fluenced in turn by Mondrian, then
Delaunay's 'Orphism', evident in the
at the sim
tains just over two hundred works
it even to be comprehensive
feels huge, because of its density: the plest possible narrative level, never splendidly attenuated figure in the 'Por
abundanceof paintings,drawings,photo mind give aesthetic pleasure. The trait of Adolfo Best Maugard' of 1913
exhibition is structured chronologically, (No. 13) and by 1918 Rivera was back
graphs, biographical data and photo
graphic reproductions of his murals enabling the viewer to survey Rivera's to Realism.During thatyear he painted,
demand
Diego Rivera
Nude with Calla Lilies, 1944.
Collection of Emilia Guzzy de Galvez.
Flower
Day,
1925,
encaustic
on canvas,
147.4
x 120.43cm.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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IRISHARTS REVIEW
EXHIBITIONS
under the beneficent influence of
Cezanne, his first masterpiece 'The
Mathematician' (No. 27).
But the best thing that could have
happened to Rivera was that the then
rector of theUniversity of Mexico, Jose
Vasconcelos, sent him to Italy to study
the Renaissance. It was at that point
that the final breakwith Paris occurred
and even if it could be argued that
some of the theories assimilated so far
became incorporated in Rivera's sub
sequent development, the level at
which this happened would have been
so subliminal as to be, from a practical
viewpoint, inconsequential.
In Italy,Etruscan,Byzantine, Trecen
to, but above allQuattrocento art, par
ticularly fresco painting, made a deep
impressionon him, providing not only
the best possible school for learning its
technique but what he most needed: an
ideal to model himself after. just as the
Italian concept of rinascitameant the
'rebirth'of Classical Antiquity, which
envisaged Petrarch's romantic dream of
the political revival of the glory and
might that once was theRoman Empire,
so did Diego Rivera dream of a
National Mexican Renaissance.
When he returned to Mexico for
good in 1921, his artistic career began
anew as a muralist,
which
is how he is
best known. Politically, this was a pro
pitious moment, for after a lengthy
period of trouble, duringwhich Mexico
was torn apart by strife and dissent, it
finally emerged as a democracy, engen
dering the Cultural Revolution of
which Rivera became a symbol. From
that date until his death in 1957, he
painted hundreds of murals both in
Mexico and theU.S.
His output was vast. The artistic
education completed by visits toYucatan
to see the pre-Conquest sites of
Chichen Itza,followed by Tehuantepec,
Rivera embarked in 1923 on his first
major commission to decorate the patio
of the Secretaria de Educacion Publica.
Thze statistics are so impressive as to
merit amention: it took him four years
and threemonths of working an average
of eighteen hours per day to complete
the cycle, which consisted of one
hundred and seventeen fresco panels,
covering almost 1,600 in2.The pay was
something like the equivalent of two
U.S. dollars a day. The Italian influence
is immediatelyvisible at morphological
The background ismore reminiscent
of the panoramic vistas in Ambrogio
Lorenzetti's fresco of the 'Good and
BadGovernment' in the PalazzoPublico
in Siena, the subject is strictlyMexican.
To my mind, it was not in the murals
but the oil paintings from that period
such as the 'Batherof Tehuantepec' of
1923, (No. 30) the 'Grinder'of 1924
(No. 31) or 'FlowerDay' of 1925 (No.
32) where Rivera, no longer either
Byzantine, Trecento or Parisian, found
at lasthis own original language.
I If anything, these paintings bring to
mind the marvellous squat peasants in
the work of the greatest painter of
peasant life of all times, Pieter Bruegel
theElder.
A few years later, in 1927, Diego
Riverawas invited to the Soviet Union.
The series of forty-five water-colours,
Zapatista Landscape - The Guerilla, 1915,
representingmoments from a celebrat
oil on canvas, 144 x 123cm.
ion of May Day inMoscow, some of
Mexico City, Museo de Arte (INBA).
them in the exhibition, are the result:
brilliant impressionisticrenderings,cap
turing the dynamics of mass demon
strations, they are, not too surprisingly,
reminiscentalso of Futurism.
Communist that Rivera was, his dif
ferenceswith Stalin's regime resulted in
a polite but firm invitation to leave the
Soviet Union. Two years later,we find
him working in the U.S.A., where
among his patrons were such 'arch
imperialists'as Edsel B. Ford and John
D. Rockefeller.
One of the most titanic projects to
engage him from 1929 for almost two
Zpthet
fredscayces wit senefuromla the5 decadeswere the frescoes painted in the
'Life ofnh Virgn'va nd the
'Lif3c of Palacio Nacional - the presidential
Christ'oCiott,Mso
pitdei
ArtenChNApel residence- with scenes from the history
of the Mexican nation. Among them
in
t
Pau.v.*
the 'GreatCity of Tenochtitlan' of 1945
(4.92 x 9.71 m) is a breath-takingpan
oramic vista filled to the- brim with
people and goings on, against the
Self-portrait, 1907, oil on canvas,
bluish backgroundof an ideal city.
84.5 x 6f.5cm. Private Collection, Mexico.
Rivera continued- to paint murals to
the last, still planning in 1957, only a
few months before his death. Nothing
changes here but- there are a few
unforgettable small compositions paint
ed during that year, the splendid oil
'Watermelons' (No. 71) as well as the
drawing 'Portraitof Pita Amor' (No.
178), whose academic clarity brings it
close to the drawingmentioned at the
beginning: thus Diego Rivera has gone
SnaMle
full circle!
lee,adti_ uh
_ste'mrcsi
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