Research: Museum Visit #2

 Museum Visit #2
4/16/2014

Images for use:

Diego Rivera: Man at the Crossroads. Palacio de Bellas Artes
:

• Visions of the debauched rich watched by the unemployed while war rages + socialist Utopia ushered in by Lenin.
• Mural repainted at the Palacio de Bellas artes by using a photograph as a reference.  

The image demonstrates past influence on Rivera's prints. We see how Rivera tied Socialism to Western influence. Some images demonstrate figures of socialism such as Trotsky or Lenin. When Rivera was influenced by these powers, we see them manifested in some of his works during this period. The print "Zapata" is part of a whole mural. In the mural that Zapata is in, we see western inspiration and political beliefs. By taking into consideration these influential hidden messages when interpreting any of Rivera's murals, we get a different significance out of his works. 

• How is Rivera's work manifesting his socialist beliefs/themes & western influence while interpreting Mexico's history?
• How did I research it? 
• Which moments do we pin-point this images to?
• Choose an image that uses the same subject matter

• while the revolution was occurring Rivera was abroad. 
• he knew Picasso & Chagall
• Back in 1921: joined Mexican communist party
• expelled in 1928: expressed sympathy for Trotsky's views dumped by Stalin. He fled Russia in exile.
• 1937: Rivera helped Trotsky and sent him to Mexico.

May 1939: Trotsky disagreed w/Rivera so he moved out.

1940: David Siqueiros was involved in Trotsky's first assassination attempt. 

Rivera fled to California after the attempt. US State Dept involved.

20 Aug, 1940: Kahlo called Rivera to notify of Trotsky's death.

Museum Visit Research Day 1: 4/14/2014

"Rivera continually reinvented the image of Zapata for didactic purposes."

-intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive.

-Aimed at a broad audience of diverse ages, social and economic classes, and nationalities, 

Diego Rivera. South wall of the mural cycle History of the State of Morelos: Conquest and Revolution, with image of Emiliano Zapata. 1930

The general is not in any way superior to the men, he is one of them. This clearly connects to the socialist themes prevalent throughout the Mexican Revolution. Diego Rivera also personally joined the Communist Party, which would help to explain why he created art in this style.  A Communist would not put leaders above the people they lead.

• Rivera’s connection with socialism went deep, for the power of his work was bound up not just with the radical nationalist Mexican Revolution, but also with the establishment of the first worker’s state in Russia in 1917.

4.12. 2014
Research Week 2 Day 2

More about western influence:

https://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/michigan/detroit/riveramurals/east.html

"The placement of the frescoes is purposeful with images of fertility and new life in the east while a version of death and the Last Judgment occupy the west wall. Diego had seen Giotto's frescoes in Italy, and just as the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua depicts the Annunciation in the east/altar end, (the Annunciation being the moment of Christ’s conception in Catholic theology), here positive images of fertility and birth are represented."

Description of Rivera's Zapata:

"Emiliano Zapata, a champion of agrarian reform and a key protagonist in the Mexican Revolution, here leads a band of peasant rebels armed with makeshift weapons, including farming tools. With the bridle of a majestic white horse in his hand, Zapata stands triumphantly beside the dead body of a hacienda owner. Though Mexican and U.S. newspapers regularly vilified the revolutionary leader as a treacherous bandit, Rivera immortalized Zapata as a hero and glorified the victory of the Revolution in an image of violent but just vengeance."

More useful information on the print:

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/rivera/content/mural/agrarian/hotspots.php

"Dressed as a humble peasant in huaraches and a white cotton shirt and trousers, Rivera’s portrait of Zapata departs from portrayals propagated by popular press images and by the rebel himself."

"Rivera’s vision of Zapata as a humble peasant offers a sympathetic portrait of a folk hero tirelessly devoted to Mexico’s disenfranchised agrarian workers."


Some thoughts:
Many western works had images of humble figures such as Christ. Rivera probably wanted Zapata to resemble this humble figure as well by having him dressed in a certain fashion rathen than nice military clothing.

Paolo Uccello (Italian, c. 1397–1475). The Battle of San Romano (detail). c. 1438. Tempera on wood. Full panel: 71 3/4" x 10' 5 1/2" (1.82 x 3.22 m). Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Photograph by Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New York

Important find:"Rivera ennobles Mexican history—and Zapata—in this work by linking them to the grandeur of European artistic tradition. The steed, whose owner Zapata has just dragged from his saddle, shares the color and imposing presence of horses in Paolo Uccello’s early 15th-century painting The Battle of San Romano, which Rivera studied on a 1920–21 trip to Italy."

Research Week 2

4/7/2014

• 1922 Rivera's First murals in Mexico; worked with Orozco and Siqueiros; joined Mexican Communist party.
• For what purpose did he make prints?
• "Despite rejection of easel painting in their manifesto of 1924, the muralists relied on the sale of portable paintings and prints to supplement the meager wages they earned on the scaffolds." (246, Oles) 



Zapata was made in 1934 by Diego Rivera.

Rivera made Zapata's print to support himself and the high demand there was for his art. 
• Another purpose for the print was for Rivera's shaping image of Mexico.
• Rivera made works that depicted Mexico's history "mainly in terms of Mexico City" .
• His works were made to "impact visitors with a totalizing and awe-inspiring visual display: fireworks more than a textbook" (269, Oles)

Emerging question based on quote:

"Hennessy (1999) claims that a distinctive characteristic of the reconstruction of society after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) was the way that artists as opposed to writers came forward as the intellectual vanguard" (Picot, 30)

Vanguard: a group of people leading the way in new developments or ideas

Other clues that Rivera did indeed utilized Western Art inspiration:

"In 1921, Rivera expresses his long-term aspiration to engage with the people's art: in Paris in Madrid, in Rome, in all of the countries I have visited, it was my wish to study popular art, the runs of our great past, with the purpose of crystalizing certain idas about art those that will give new and broad sense to my work" (Rivera quoted in Folgarait 1998)

• In Rivera's print Zapata we observe his idea to crystalize certain ideas about art. He clearly wanted to use Western influence because it added essence to his work. 
• What type of ideas did he want to crystalize?
• Maybe he had his own personal opinions about the great masters that he studied from. Rivera must have observed those masters with great inspiration if he decided to use some composition values seen in their art to his own work.
• Other ideas:
• the Zapata print has a character on the ground. This seems to be an hacienda owner. Rivera referred his print to the Hacienda System. Zapata is seen standing tall and about to start a revolt now that the hacienda owner is on the ground.
• (the hacienda system absorbed local lands in big estates, there was a widespread exploitation of estate workers which reached near-slavery. This led to impoverishment and landlessness amongst the indigenous as well as the breaking of ancient traditions - Picot)

Research Week 1 part 2

Research April 5, 2014

Brief timeline of Diego Rivera's life:

• 1886 Born on December 8 in silver-mining town, Guanajuato
• 1896 Began study of art, Academia de San Carlos,Mexico City
• 1902 Joined student strikes; left academy because he disagreed with system of photographic realism introduced by new director

• 1907 Awarded grant to study art in Spain
• 1908-09 Traveled in Europe; exhibited with Indépendants in Paris
• 1910 Returned to Mexico; experienced beginning of
• Mexican Revolution
• 1911-21 Spent time in France, Spain, and Italy, learning from modernists and old masters
• 1922 First murals in Mexico; worked with Orozco and Siqueiros; joined Mexican Communist party
• 1929 Married artist Frida Kahlo, his third wife
• 1933 Worked on Rockefeller Plaza mural, which was destroyed because he included Lenin’s portrait
• 1936-40 Worked exclusively on easel painting: landscapes, portraits
• 1940-57 Numerous wall murals in Mexico and United States
• 1957 Died in Mexico City

Emerging questions:

-Who taught Rivera during 1911-21 in France, Spain and Italy? Who were the modernists and old masters party? How is their influence manifested in Rivera's future works such as his first murals?

Quote in article that caught my attention:

"He (Rivera) knew that in Europe there were great painters and the work of the old masters from whom he could learn. Rivera thought that perhaps he could raise money for his passage by selling his paintings but he knew he would still need money to support himself." (Norwood)

reference link:

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1999/2/99.02.06.x.html

Further research:

 "In 1907, the governor of Veracruz granted the young painter money to travel to Europe, in order to further his artistic education, and in January 1908, Rivera left for Spain. While in Europe, Rivera experimented with a great variety of styles and techniques, emulating the old masters like El Greco and the painters of the Italian and Northern Renaissances, experimenting with Classicism and Impressionism, dabbling in the contemporary movements of Cubism and Post-Impressionism and finally settling on the simple, straightforward Realist style that would characterize most of his later work."  (Mataev)

Research link:

http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rivera/riverabio.html

Research Week 1

3/31/2014
What can we learn about Rivera’s intent to make his prints look the way they do? What is the the content of his works? How does it reflect in the print Zapata? What religious allegories did he use to symbolize political movements? Which Western art images reflect Rivera’s composition style in his print? Where did he train and gained knowledge from? Is Zapata reflecting other main subjects found in Western art? If so who? What does this say about Zapata and how Rivera’s intended to make him stand out in his work?

·         For what purpose?

·         For what people?

·         How did people interpret the print? 

" The representation of the peasant/Indian is reminiscent of depictions of angels and other religious figures in Italian fresco. The haloed angels in the detail by Giotto's panel entitled Lamentation and Rivera's indigenous peasants wear halo-like hats which are reminiscent of Giotto's figures; a similarity which both reinforces the idea of Rivera's European models and shows the way he has created an eclectic hybrid montage of forms and adapted religious symbolism for a secular nationalistic message"  (Picot, 182)

Giotto's Lamentation: example of halos used

Rivera's Zapata : example of hats made to represent halos

Another example of western art that might have influenced Rivera.
Lorenzetti. Jesus entering Jerusalem. 1320

Types of views in art

2/19/2014

• Aerial view of Lazaro Cardenas dam (from downstream), Durango 1964
• the image demonstrated a Mexican historical dam in which the SRH (Secretaria de Recursos Hidraulicos) is emphasized.
• Images/Photographs like the aerial view of the Lazaro Cardenas dam were taken in this particular way to emphasize the content of the image. 
• The image was made to catch the SRH's attention.
• (*When looking at photographs and analyzing them, it is important to look at the type of shot the photograph is; is it vertical? horizontal? a landscape image? aerial view?) This can help the viewer notice different aspects about the image such as:
• To whom is the photograph meant to catch interest?
• What is being emphasized?
• What visuals tell something to the viewer?

• Regarding research questions:
• Research questions will be broad but will have a pin-point at the end. (like a martini glass)
• By starting with a broader question, I can analyze different aspects of the question such as the chronology of it.
• This helps the researcher gather more information that will lead to a pin-point question.

• Troka el Poderoso
• Estridentismo (1921-1940)
• government passed propaganda to have children interested in technology.
• government and artists wanted aesthetic evolution influenced by futurism and avant-garde
• Julio Prieto was one of the artists who used Troka (the giant robot)
• Troka used as a metaphor for connectivity 
• analysis of technology, radio programs
• 1934 Troka stopped being used as propaganda
• The image of Troka can be used as an analysis:
• who was the specific target audience of the print?
• Who was it aimed for?

UAMA Visit #2 Looking Deeper into Rivera's: Zapata Print

Diego Rivera, Zapata, (1934)

• Emiliano Zapata, a champion of agrarian reform and a key protagonist in the Mexican Revolution.
• Dressed in white like the other agricultural workers (campesinos). This style was highly used by the peasants in Mexico during the revolution.
• Emiliano Zapata's supporters had no uniform compared to Villa's army. Zapata's men only wore what they had. They also had no weapons unlike Villa's army. 
• The campesinos used what they worked with on the farms as weapons: machetes and other tools. 
• The Mexican Revolution lasted from 1910-1919.

Observations made and questions:

• Did Rivera used religious references when creating the print?
• Ex: Fallen man (clearly upper class or an hacienda owner) is touching Zapata's foot similar to Christ getting his feet touched or washed as a symbol of respect, humility or submission. 
• Hats worn by Zapata's men could be representing halos similar to angels. 
• Can be emphasized as the angels of the revolution
• The fallen man was also wearing a uniform. Could it be one of Villa's army men? (Villa had support from the US so they had uniformity and weaponry unlike Zapata's army).

Was Rivera's print made due to high-demand art interest in the USA during 1932?

Tierra y Libertadad

2/12/2014

• Calles: manipulative + opportunistic, raised the agrarian reform to tame the beast (the revolution).
• passed labor reforms so workers could stay united and calm for now.
• CROM (Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana) 
• was a corrupt group of politicians
• they wouldn't do anything for the workers like they said they would.
• Albaro Obregon gets re-elected but he is killed like Carranza.
• Calles wants to get re-elected but cannot serve another term because he just served the presidency. 
• instead, he gets puppet presidents to do the job for him.
• He is also called el Jefe Maximo

Rise of Lazaro Cardenas

• PNR (Partido Nacional Revolucionario)
• Wins presidency and Mexico celebrates.
• names key military leaders
• key leaders 
• frees himself from the Maximato

(Tierra y Libertadad)
Calles believes he is presidential and has power (Jefe Maximo)

• was kicked out of Mexico
• general goes into his room at night and makes him take a plane to Austin Texas
• Calles was very surprised he was even alive

Cardenas gave peasants money & labor they didn't have 

• he looked at oil and focused on petroleum workers
• Nationalized oil (oil expropriation)
• wants to make Mexico belong to itself.

Rivera, Sugar Mill, 1923-24

• clarity of activities
• communal process
• design
• presentation of labor practices; highly idealized work practices such as making tortillas, working a mill.
• there is a sense of community and unity of the people

• Diego Rivera's painting of mine workers emphasized religious metaphors such as the crucifixion
• Mining industry emphasized the importance of the earth and nature
• Rivera uses the same oppositions such as: enter & exit, etc.
• Rivera keeps the scene compact
• Scenes of mine workers:
• coming in and out of the mine: we never see an end, there is no end to the labor
• tied labor issues
• the room is organized
• ideas of Christ and carrying the cross are emphasized (their labor is their own burden)
• the man is being searched highlights the practices the workers had to go through on routine.

• Day of the Dead - traditional practice.
• use of vertical space
• organized chaos
• consuming 
• buying & selling
• pulque and cervesa (beer)
• distribution of land: idea of the revolution; it did not happen until Lazaro Cardenas took charge.
• Court of Fiestas: regional and local practices
• tightly composed, colorful, idealized
• perspective here is reverse

example of Rivera's lilies

• depth to flat

Rivera, Flower Day at Santa Anita

• formal conventions, perspective spatial organization
• landscape 
• flowers (alcatrazez)
• traditional practices
• contrast of race/status/ etc
• new figures where introduced
• dark figures contrasting with light figures
• well-fed vs natives
• 
  

Liberation of the Peon & The Rural School Teacher

Liberation of the Peon

Rural School Teacher (The New School)

• Diego  Rivera and a team of artists worked to create a mural around framework and doors. 
• The mural spanned between windows, offices, doors and many other boundaries found in the building. 
• Many visual information was painted in a balanced manner. 

(Telluric: relationship between culture and the landscape/nature.)

• gold sands where emphasized in both murals as well as sharp mountains. 

• In Liberation of the Peon: the peon has been liberated through death.
• Rivera used the same symbols as in the Deposition of Christ in the mural. 
• It was organized by Rivera by adding religious context. 
• It emphasizes the same concept as in the Deposition of Christ. 
• The pose constructs the peon as a martyr. 
• The painting has simplified figures. 
• The straw hats emphasize halos as in the deposition of Christ. 
• Makes the figures in the mural look like angels or holy beings pertinent to Mexico.
• Horses taken from Renaissance perspective & carefully arranged and completed.
• The meaning in the Liberation of the Peon is intensified by the mural's perspective. 
• idea of crucified Christ by all the wound marks on the body.
• the figures are emphasized as NOT religious martyrs but revolutionary ones. 

Rivera used the same theme for a mural at the MOMA. 

The Rural School Teacher (La Maestra Rural)

• Diego Rivera's conception of land and earth.
• image represents what was seen in photographs.
• figure on horse- a rural worker
• female figure teacher sitting and lecturing the agricultural workers: women + children.
• emphasized as the importance of literacy & education

Diego Rivera's style was emphasized in the murals because of the figure's round shapes, well trained landscape representation and obvious knowledge in art history. 

Rivera, Weavers, 1923-24

• rhythm of threads
• careful arrangement of what we might see in a photograph
• communal activity/process
• painting emphasizes clarity of activities 

Colegio de San Ildefonso

2/5/2014

Siqueiros & Orozco

 

Orozco, Maternity, (1923) Fresco

 

• Orozco used a fiery red. The mural emphasizes maternity, adolescence, beauty, intelligent and virginity.
  
  
   
  

 

....................... (Notes in progress)



Chaos & The Cosmos + La Decena Trágica

Diego Rivera, Creation, (1922)

• One of Rivera's first mural located at the Bolívar Amphitheater at the University of Mexico.
• Rivera's murals can be discussed as an integration of "primary shapes"  with added mathematical proportions. 
• Creation emphasizes the primordial sphere. Females are very monumental emphasizing fertility and the story of Adam & Eve... thus the beginning of times. 

                                     Birth -----> Present

• Rivera's mural includes:
• allegorical images representing culture
• symmetry and balance
• subjects in his murals were usually Rivera's friends.

  

  Photograph of Guadalupe Marin & Frida Kahlo

•  Rivera incorporated people in his life into his murals by adding their face. Everyone could distinguish a Rivera mural because of the people in it. Frida seems to be represented a vast amount of times. She was an important individual in Rivera's life as well as his second wife.



Guadalupe Marin in Rivera's work.

• Dark-skinned individuals emphasized "la gente de Mexico"
• The animals represented in his murals were Mexican such as ox. 

Pancho Villa

• Commander of the Division del Norte (most feared unit in all of Mexico).
• Gained support of the south from 1913-1914 & gained North American support by being neutral in Mexico and not taking sides. 
• America gave him weapons in return
• Villa printed his own currency
• Villa was also a gambler and his revolution strategies demonstrate his gambling actions. He made moves "al azar" meaning that he didn't know what the result might be but he was willing to take the risk. 

Victoriano Huerta



• Huerta was the son of a Mestizo and hated the fact that he was one. This caused him great anger and used his hate for his past as a weapon. He was ashamed of his past.
• He hated the Zapatistas because they reminded him of his past.

La Decena Trágica

• Madero and Pinos Juarez were assasinated. Huerta becomes president as a result. 
• Villa wants to avenge Madero's death and will continue to fight were the revolution left off but with a different strategy...

                                                       

Los Tres Grandes & UAMA Visit

1/22/2014                                                                                                                               ARH 423B
                                                                                                                           Art of Modern Mexico

Modern Mexican Prints by Los Trés Grandes
(The 3 most prolific Mexican artists of early to mid 20th Century) 

 

• Diego Rivera
• David Alfaro Siqueiros
• Jose Clemente Orozco

What was in the prints at the UAMA?

Orozco. Mujeres (1934)

• Violent body language as well as an emphasis on sexuality. 
• One of the women seems to be using force against another. 
• There is a difference in skin color in the figures being represented. 
• Some women seem to be wearing heavy make up and jewelry.
• The women being represented look older and mature.
• It almost seems as if the lithograph is representing a brothel of some sort due to the way some of the women are dressed and being represented sexually. 

Diego Rivera. Zapata. (1932)

• Worker class men are being emphasized.
• Mexican campesinos are shown in the lithograph due to fact that they are wearing white clothes and sandals (huaraches)
• Revolutionaries are dressed differently from the upper class man that is shown on the ground.
• The man on the ground seems to be upper class due to what he is wearing. His fashion is different than the campesinos shown. He had a military sword and his horse was well groomed. In comparison with the campasinos, the man on the ground seems to be well-groomed and dressed differently. (He had boots for horse riding).
• The horse seems to be acknowledging his new owner by the way his eyes are meeting those of the figure being represented. 
• The scene seems to be taking place near a rain forest or a place where there's heavy agriculture due to the style of the leaves being demonstrated on the lithograph.
• The weapons being used in the riot by the campesinos are those used for agriculture working such as sickles.
• The man in front of the campesinos (Zapata) is emphasized to be the leader because of its stance and grasp on the horse.
• 8 total men in the lithograph
• the lithograph demonstrates Zapata about to take charge and start a revolution.

Siqueiros. Zapata (1983)

• The horse man seems to be a charro by the way he is dressed. 
• The stance the man is representing is that of portraiture. 
• The man looks upper class by the clothes selection in comparison with the campesino style of dress.
• Revolutionary
• the lithograph doesn't seem to demonstrate much action movement.
• the way Zapata is holding the horse seems very relaxed and demonstrates that he is in charge.

When looking at works of art, in order to analyze and interpret them, it is important to look at:

• Space: What do the surroundings represent? Is there a setting? What is it about a work of art that makes you conclude a setting?
• Figures: What are the figures doing? What is happening in the work of art?
• Visual Representations: What are the figures wearing? holding? How are they acting or standing? What are they expressing?