“I’ve never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso.” Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera is arguably the most important Mexican modernist painter of his time. Rivera’s artistic sensibilities and pictorial innovations — forged in the creative sparks that emanated from the anvil of Cubism in Europe at the turn of the 20th century — constitute one of the main factors that would revolutionize art in Mexico and instigate the Mexican Mural Movement.
Rivera started drawing at the tender age of three and his parents, immediately recognizing his talent, supported him wholeheartedly. By his tenth birthday Rivera had enrolled in the Academy of San Carlos and become a pupil of two seminal figures in the history of Mexican art; José María Velasco and Santiago Rebull. In 1907, the Mexican government and Dr. Atl — an established Mexican artist and a pioneer in the development of monumental public art — sponsored his studies in Spain under Eduardo Chicharro. He then spent the next 14 years in Europe, painting prolifically, and rining the more technical aspects of a wide variety of styles. in Paris, he met and befriended a series of Cubist and Fauvist painters, such as Picasso, Derain, Braque, Gris and Modigliani. During this pivotal period in his career from 1913 to 1917, Rivera painted in a Cubist style. It was this European education and his introduction to the Parisian intelligentsia, coupled with his solid artistic education in Mexico that helped him develop his personal and distinctive pictorial style.
Rivera’s most significant influence during this time was Orphic Cubism. In this, more analytical initial phase of Cubism, the artist transforms the object by deconstructing and reassembling it to depict the subject from a multitude of viewpoints, in an abstracted form; thus representing it in a wider context. By concentrating on the compositional strategy, the artist was able to further transform the object to suggest angular and curvilinear surfaces, and by regulating dark and light tones, which were traditionally monochromatic. Yet it is precisely through color that Rivera distinguished himself from the more austere Cubist palette and pioneers of the movement, such as Picasso and Braque, who focused on pure abstraction. Rivera’s colors, on the other hand, can be read as Mexican, finding their sources in his home country’s vibrant markets and brightly colored sarapes. The bold colors he used in his Cubist paintings laid the foundation for the rich and harmonious palette for which he is now well known.
Although at first glance Cubism seems to disappear from Rivera’s later work, the fact remains that Cubism left a resounding impact on the artist and continued influence his artistic production long after he returned to Mexico. Rivera believed that “Cubism was the most important achievement in the arts since the Renaissance”. More importantly, the rigor with which he explored this technique provided him the discipline for pictorial construction. The effects were unequivocal and are reflected throughout his oeuvre. Although Rivera mainly painted portraits in his Cubist period, he did a few landscapes and still lifes, such as Zapatista Landscape —The Guerrilla, 1915 and the present lot, Naturaleza muerta (Composición con alcachofas y limones), 1916. These are not only great examples of Cubism, but also prefigure the pictorial elements that made Rivera an established artist.
The present lot incorporates the different stylistic elements for which he became famous; a blend of “avant-garde practices, Pre-Hispanic sources, popular art and traditional academic paintings.” Conceived in the avant-garde Cubist style, this painting is imbued with Rivera’s signature brightly colored palette and the experimental textures from his Cubist period. The work is signed in blocky, stenciled initials, “DMR,” as Rivera was known to do during these transitional years and further evinces his interest in geometric structure. Even though Rivera’s murals, as well as all of his post-European production, would later depict a style of Realism, his figural style was suffused with geometric shapes, and peculiar perspectives, typical to Cubism. Ultimately, Rivera utilized Cubist strategies to consolidate his own, very complex brand of Realism that
placed him at the forefront of International Modernism.