Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Riverawas a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals among others in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Rivera had a...
NationalityMexican
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth8 December 1886
CityGuanajuato, Mexico
CountryMexico
July 13, 1954 was the most tragic day of my life. I had lost my beloved Frida forever. To late now I realized that the most wonderful part of my life had been my love for Frida.
Through her paintings, she breaks all the taboos of the woman's body and of female sexuality.
I did not know it then, but Frida had already become the most important fact in my life. And would continue to be, up to the moment she died, 27 years later.
Never before had a woman put such agonizing poetry on canvas as Frida did
My cubist paintings are my most Mexican.
If I ever loved a woman, the more I loved her, the more I wanted to hurt her. Frida was only the most obvious victim of this disgusting trait.
Art is like ham-it nourishes people.
Looking back upon my work today, I think the best I have done grew out of things deeply felt, the worst from a pride in mere talent.
As an artist I have always tried to be faithful to my vision of life, and I have frequently been in conflict with those who wanted me to paint not what I saw but what they wished me to see.
I've never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso.
To be an artist, one must . . . never shirk from the truth as he understands it, never withdraw from life
All art is propaganda. ... The only difference is the kind of propaganda. Since art is essential for human life, it can't just belong to the few. Art is the universal language, and it belongs to all mankind. All painters have been propagandists or else they have not been painters. ... Every artist who has been worth anything in art has been such a propagandist. ... Every strong artist has been a propagandist. I want to be a propagandist and I want to be nothing else. ... I want to use my art as a weapon.
An artist is above all a human being, profoundly human to the core. If the artist can't feel everything that humanity feels, if the artist isn't capable of loving until he forgets himself and sacrifices himself if necessary, if he won't put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn't a great artist.
I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican.