The Influential Mexican Artist: Diego Rivera

The artist named Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, better known as Diego Rivera, was and remains a prominent Mexican painter. Diego Rivera was born on the 8th of December 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico and died on November 24, 1957 in Mexico City Mexico. Recognizing their son’s artistic abilities, at twelve years old Rivera was enrolled at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts (Souter, 2). Two years after graduation the government sponsored Rivera to continue his studies in Europe. While immersed in the artist communities in Spain and Paris, Rivera’s artistic development was influenced by the Spanish masters including El Greco, Francisco Goya and Diego Velasquez. Upon his return
The Detroit Industry Murals consist of twenty-seven fresco panels at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Commissioned by Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford and William Valentiner, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the murals were to reflect the history of Detroit and the development of industry (Gonyea, 2). These murals were created in the midst of the depression, and Rivera put to work on the murals many of men who found themselves out of work due to the depression. Rivera created murals (frescoes) on all four walls of the Institute. While the murals on the East Walls (the direction of the sunrise) reflect the beginnings of life and the world’s first agricultural tools, the murals on the West Walls (the direction of the sunsets) reflect destruction and the ending of life and include the symbols of the dove and hawk (Downs, 7). However, the North and South Walls contain the most memorable images of the evolution of technology. Rivera includes the entire processes of production of cars and includes the assembly line which Ford was known to have created. The murals reflect workers engaged in all aspects of the production and assembly process. The colors used by Rivera are wide ranging, and in some instances muted. The North wall murals reflect the colors of fire (red and orange) and coal (black and grays) in conveyor belts snaking along the top of the wall. Centered in the mural are white, pristine, machines that focus and frame the wall. The workers are shown in overalls in muted colors of browns, greens and blues, and Rivera shows black, brown and white workers collectively working together in these industrial efforts. Other parts of the wall show workmen eerily shadowed by industrial light which makes their faces a pastel green against a background of pastel blue lines of machinery and production. All of the Walls show Rivera’s detail to draftsmanship, his placement of the white