Artist Diego Rivera - Interesting Facts and Information

The name of the artist this hub is written for is Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez, but the more common name he goes by is Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera began enjoying art very young in life. He was three years old when the took up drawing on the walls. His twin brother Carlos had died the year before. His parents did not punish him, bur rather brought in materials for the walls in which he was free to create more works of art. Who knows what kind of long term impact that made on the mind of Rivera.

Diego was born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico on December 8, 1886. He died on November 24, 1957. He was born in a well to do family and descended from Spanish royalty on his father's side.

Diego began to study at the age of ten years old in Mexico City, at the Academy of San Carlos. The governor of the state of Veracruz evidently saw promise in Rivera, as he sponsored him to continue studying art in Europe. The name of his sponsor was Teodoro A. Dehesa Mendez. Diego's mother was a converted catholic from Judaism. She was forced to become a Catholic, and Diego was proud to say that his Jewishness was a very dominant part of his life. I thought this was interesting as he was an atheist and a communist later on.

Diego Rivera in Europe

Rivera went to Europe in 1907 and studied with Eduardo Chicharro in Madrid Spain. He went on to Paris, France where he was able to live and work with many great artists. He was in Montparnasse and also at La Ruche where a friend of his, Amedeo Modigliani, did a portrait of Rivera. The portrait was done in 1914.

Pablo Picasso and others began gaining popularity around this time, and cubism in paintings was something Rivera embraced.

How Diego Rivera Discovered Cezanne

How Rivera became a fan of Cezanne is an interesting story. Evidently there was an art shop, owned by a Ambroise Vollard. In 1910, Cezanne had become much more recognized, and Vollard would put displays in his window. There is one day in particular that made a great impact and Rivera stood motionless, staring at the work of Cezanne in the window. Hours went by, and the shop owner noticed the strangeness of this event. Rivera had been taking turns standing still, then would move around while looking at the art, then crane his neck, then stand still again.

Well, this shop owner thought it odd and went to lunch. When he came back, he was more annoyed than ever as the young Diego Rivera was still standing there. Then Vollard had an idea. He took down the one painting by Cezanne, and substituted it with another of Cezanne's. Rivera was all the more interested now. For the rest of the day, until the shop closed, the owner would change the art by Cezanne for this very eager art lover. This is how Diego Rivera discovered Cezanne. Rivera was twenty three at this time.

This one day meant more to his art than any other, some say. Of course we know that as time went on, Rivera did not want to paint European, but Mexican art. So subsequent realizations also played a large role, as I am sure his philosophy had played a big part especially later on.

Diego was only one of thousands of foreign students that had traveled to France to learn the newest methods of creating art. Later, after he went back to his own country, he was deeply stirred by beginning of the revolution of 1910. He then went back to Paris for a few years and became a "cubist." He was deeply impacted by a close friendship with Picasso. However, it was the more classic paintings of Picasso that he learned the most from.

Ultimately, there were three main influences on Diego Rivera. These are Cezanne, Picasso, and Henri Rousseau. It still took some time to find himself

Diego Rivera's Painting Style

In 1923, Rivera painted the first of his famous frescoes of the Ministry of Education Building in Mexico City. By 1924 he had a mature and distinctive painting style. He became a political revolutionary as well as an internationalist, and Communist and Atheist, as I stated before. He had impact in the United States as well with his murals. His ideas were a bit more liberal in ideology than many might have liked, but his art was interesting and it began to receive more and more attention.

So Rivera came very far from the shy youth that went to Europe. Thirty years later he became legendary in the world of art. He was a man that was internationally admired though sometimes feared. He has received his share of criticism which might have deterred others along their path. He receives much praise as well, from early on until now.