by Diego Rivera
Only once before had a death moved me so strongly. Shortly before the war, a major political figure emerged from the French left. Everybody, myself included, went to hear the speeches of Jean Jaurès. Jaurès was an orator of incendiary vigor, with a mind like a steel trap. Seeing and hearing Jaurès address the masses and watching the response of the many thousands who composed his audience, had been an inspiration. When Jaurès died at the hands of a “patriot assassin,” it was as if a part of me had also been struck down.
With the memory of Jaurès, I associate the day I saw for the first time, in Paris, a huge mass of people all moving together, enthusiastic but orderly, in a powerful solidarity of faith and purpose. This vision I later transposed in many ways in heroic murals where, also, the hero was not an individual but a mass. Particular leaders emerged from this mass but only as its antennae and speakers, to receive, formulate and transmit the collective thoughts, aspirations and dreams of their unnumbered fellows.
Following the death of my son, I intensified my labors to rid myself of modernist residues in my work. By the end of 1919 I felt that I had cleansed myself sufficiently to take the next step and, by research and study, prepare myself for my new career as a mural painter. To obtain the money I needed to live and travel, I turned to a brother Mexican, the engineer Alberto Pani, then serving as Mexican Minister to France. Pani, who was later to figure in one of the great Rivera art scandals, bought my portrait “The Mathematician,” and commissioned portraits of himself and his wife. With the money I received for these, I went to Italy to study the frescoes of the old masters.
IN ITALY
MY ITALIAN TRAVELS took me from Milan southward to Florence, Rome, Naples, and Pompeii; and then northward, along the Adriatic coast, through Venice. I spent a year and a half in Italy, from January, 1920 to July, 1921.
My stay in Italy did not begin well. No sooner had I arrived than I wanted to leave. Among other things I could not bear the Italian habit of spitting everywhere—in the street, in ships, in hotels, in restaurants. Everybody spat, including the loveliest and most refined ladies. I remember a banquet at which I met the cream of Italian society, where the most conspicuous objects were gleaming brass cuspidors.
But I soon learned to make allowance for this revolting custom. There was so much to see in Italy—the marvelous treasures of Michelangelo and Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, and Antonello da Messina. I could not bear to go to bed. While traveling in trains, I went third class, slept through the trip, and in that way saved time as well as money. To this day, I can sleep in trains and automobiles and wake up as refreshed as if I had been cradled in a soft hotel bed.
During my seventeen months in Italy, I completed more than three hundred sketches from the frescoes of the masters and from life. Many of the latter depicted street clashes between socialists and fascists which occurred before my eyes. I often sketched while bullets whistled around my ears.
When I had reached the point where I thought I could apply what I had learned about mural painting, the question arose, In what country should I begin? I had had enough of France. My friend David Sternberg, the Soviet People’s Commissar of the Fine Arts, had invited me to Russia. I was tempted to go. But the call of my country was stronger than ever. And a turn in the political situation seemed to favor my prospects. The landlord dictator, Venustiano Carranza, had been overthrown by the peasants and workers who supported Álvaro Obregón. An artist with my revolutionary point of view could now find a place in Mexico—a place in which to work and grow.
Good-bye, Europe. Good-bye, Italy. Good-bye, France. Good-bye, Spain. For a second time, the exile was coming home.
I AM REBORN: 1921
MY HOMECOMING produced an esthetic exhilaration which it is impossible to describe. It was as if I were being born anew, born into a new world. All the colors I saw appeared to be heightened; they were clearer, richer, finer, and more full of light. The dark tones had a depth they had never had in Europe. I was in the very center of the plastic world, where forms and colors existed in absolute purity. In everything I saw a potential masterpiece—the crowds, the markets, the festivals, the marching battalions, the workingmen in the shops and fields—in every glowing face, in every luminous child. All was revealed to me. I had the conviction that if I lived a hundred lives I could not exhaust even a fraction of this store of buoyant beauty.
The very first sketch I completed amazed me. It was actually good! From then on, I worked confidently and contentedly. Gone was the doubt and inner conflict that had tormented me in Europe. I painted as naturally as I breathed, spoke, or perspired. My style was born as children are born, in a moment, except that this birth had come after a torturous pregnancy of thirty-five years.
For the first six months, nevertheless, I painted no frescoes but supported myself with a succession of bizarre jobs. One was as art advisor for a publishing house that never published a book; another was as chief of propaganda trains—a governmental scheme that came to nothing; and a third was as director of a workers’ school which never opened its doors.
Then, at last, I was given a wall to cover at the National Preparatory School of the University of Mexico.
LUPE
ONE DAY as I was busily working in the studio I had recently set up, I was visited by the beautiful singer Concha Michel. She said to me, “Comrade Rivera, you’re a cabrón (bastard)!”
I laughed. “Agreed, comrade.”
“Men call those women who like to go out with every man they please putas (prostitutes). You, Comrade Rivera, are a puto, since you go out with every woman you can.”
“Correct, comrade,” I responded.
“And what’s more,” Concha said, “you’re shameless.”
“I admit it.”
“And you’re in love with me; you’re crazy about me; but you say nothing to me about your feelings because you fear me, knowing that I’m not a puta. You also know that I wouldn’t leave the brave, stupid, and fairly honest man I’m living with to take up with a cabrón like you. And that’s not all I wish to say, either. In spite of the fact that you have said nothing to me because you’re such a shameless puto, I’m as much in love with you as you are with me. You’re so tricky and treacherous, though, that I’m not sure you won’t get me to run away with you one of these days.”
I replied, “All you say is correct, my dear friend, but if you’re going to run off with me sooner or later, why not right now?”
“I’ve already taken steps not to make that mistake, the wisest possible under the circumstances. I realize that the only thing that can keep us apart is another woman who is handsomer, freer, and braver than I am. So I have sought her out. And I have brought her straight here to you!”
Concha walked to the door, called “Lupe!” and stepped aside.
A strange and marvelous-looking creature, nearly six feet tall, appeared. She was black-haired, yet her hair looked more like that of a chestnut mare than a woman’s. Her green eyes were so transparent she seemed to be blind. Her face was an Indian’s, the mouth with its full, powerful lips open, the corners drooping like those of a tiger. The teeth showed sparkling and regular: animal teeth set in coral such as one sees in old idols. Held at her breast, her extraordinary hands had the beauty of tree roots or eagle talons. She was round-shouldered, yet slim and strong and tapering, with long, muscular legs that made me think of the legs of a wild filly.
Concha introduced her. “My friend Lupe Marin from Guadalajara. Come into the room.”
Lupe walked in slowly, her green eyes focusing upon the drawings I had been preparing, as it happened, for my National Preparatory School mural.
She stopped to gaze at me as at some inanimate object. Inclining her head, she looked me over from head to toes.
At last she turned to Concha. “Is this the great Diego Rivera?” she asked. “To me he looks horrible!”
Concha smiled with satisfaction. “Horrible, eh? All right. Everything is settled. Nothing can stop what’s
going to happen now!” And with that prophecy, she grabbed her things and ran out of the studio.
Lupe remained standing, silently glancing around the room. Finally her eyes fixed on a bowl on my work table. The bowl was filled with a pyramid of beautiful fruit.
“Why are those fruit there? Are you painting a still life?” Lupe asked.
“No, Lupe, they are there to be enjoyed both by looking and by eating.”
“Can I eat some?”
“Of course, Lupe. Please eat all you want.”
She sat down on a high draftsman’s bench, took a banana with both hands, and peeled it skillfully like an ape. She ate the fruit rapidly, then casually threw the skin against the wall behind her. She took another piece of fruit and silently repeated this operation. Then another and another until there was nothing left in the bowl.
“Could you send someone out to buy me some more to eat?”
“Surely,” I replied, and did as she asked.
When she had devoured a second mound of fruit, Lupe said, “I was hungry. I had not eaten anything for two whole days.”
She rose and came toward me. “Shall I sit for you?”
“With much pleasure.”
I began her first portrait, then a second and a third. Then I made four or five study heads for the auditorium, in addition to about twenty hands. After that day, we were together so much that it became a trial for both of us to be apart. By mutual consent, we became lovers.
One night, during a political meeting held in the house of a friend, Lupe sauntered in. She greeted everybody and then seriously and formally asked for the floor. In the curious silence which ensued, she delivered an excellent speech, using political, social, professional, and personal arguments to prove to her listeners that if Diego Rivera were not entirely a fool, he would marry her.
As soon as she was done, I rose to second her.
That night we began living together, in the sight of all, as man and wife.
AN APPARITION OF FRIDA
A FEW DAYS after Lupe and I set up housekeeping, we went to the auditorium where I was to begin my mural. While painting, I suddenly heard, from behind one of the colonial pillars in the spacious room, the voice of an unseen girl.
Teasingly, she shouted, “On guard, Diego, Nahui is coming!”
Nahui was the Indian name of a talented woman painter who was posing for one of the auditorium figures.
The voice said no more, but another time, when I was at work with Nahui, I heard it again, “On guard, Diego, here comes Lupe!”
One night, as I was painting high on the scaffold and Lupe was sitting and weaving down below, there was a loud hubbub. It came from a group of young students shouting and pushing against the auditorium door. All at once the door flew open, and a girl who seemed to be no more than ten or twelve was propelled inside.
She was dressed like any other high school student but her manner immediately set her apart. She had unusual dignity and self-assurance, and there was a strange fire in her eyes. Her beauty was that of a child, yet her breasts were well developed.
She looked straight up at me. “Would it cause you any annoyance if I watched you at work?” she asked.
“No, young lady, I’d be charmed,” I said.
She sat down and watched me silently, her eyes riveted on every move of my paint brush. After a few hours, Lupe’s jealousy was aroused, and she began to insult the girl. But the girl paid no attention to her. This, of course, enraged Lupe the more. Hands on hips, Lupe walked toward the girl and confronted her belligerently. The girl merely stiffened and returned Lupe’s stare without a word.
Visibly amazed, Lupe glared at her a long time, then smiled, and in a tone of grudging admiration, said to me, “Look at that girl! Small as she is, she does not fear a tall, strong woman like me. I really like her.”
The girl stayed about three hours. When she left, she said only, “Good night.” A year later I learned that she was the hidden owner of the voice which had come from behind the pillar and that her name was Frida Kahlo. But I had no idea that she would one day be my wife.
I continued working on the National Preparatory School mural. The school was in an old baroque building constructed in the first half of the eighteenth century. The surface I worked on was the arched front wall. In the lower center was an antique pipe organ, and I incorporated both the arch and the organ into the design of my mural; the former, by repeating the suggestion of a rainbow arch in the colors and disposition of the allegorical figures rising symmetrically from both sides of the wall; the latter, by blending its lines into the pyramidal Tree of Life which I depicted in the center.
The subject of the mural was Creation, which I symbolized as everlasting and as the core of human history. More specifically, I presented a racial history of Mexico through figures representing all the types that had entered the Mexican blood stream, from the autochthonous Indian to the present-day, half-breed Spanish Indian.
In the Tree of Life were four symbolic animals in which were recognizable features of the lion, the ox, the caribou, and the eagle. At its apex was the torso of a hermaphroditic man, his arms outstretched to the right and left.
To the right, at the foot of the tree, sat a nude male, his back to the beholder, in conversation with Knowledge and Fable. Behind them sat figures representing the Poetry of Passion, Tradition, and Tragedy. On a slightly higher plane, a rising group of figures represented Prudence, Strength, Justice, and Continence, with Science the topmost figure.
To the left of the tree sat a female nude posed for by Lupe. She was listening to Music blowing a gold double reed and watching Dance. Seated at the side of Music was Song, also modeled by Lupe in purple skirt and red shawl, and directly behind these two, Comedy.
The three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and, above them, Wisdom, completed the figures on the left side.
The “rainbow” of human forms was closed by a blue half circle under the keystone of the arch, from which poured three rays of light materializing in hands pointing downward and to the sides of the mural, toward the earth, and signifying solar energy, the life source of all.
The mural covered a thousand square feet. Each figure was twelve feet tall. The process I used was the ancient wax encaustic. I labored continuously for an entire year until the spring of 1922. Yet, though my interpretation of the Creation was essentially progressive, I was dissatisfied when the work was done. It seemed to me too metaphorical and subjective for the masses. In my next mural, begun in 1923, in the courtyard of the Education Building, I would come closer to my purpose.
While I was at work on the National Preparatory School mural, Lupe began to worry increasingly about how her family would react when they learned about our irregular union. So one day, for her peace of mind, I acceded to her wish for a church marriage.
I had just returned that morning from Puebla, a revolutionary stronghold. The Communist Party in that city was forming a united front with the forces of Calles and Obregón against reactionary followers of the late General Huerta.
Wearing a red ribbon in my hat and high boots on my feet, I brought Lupe, dressed in an ordinary dress instead of the traditional lace, before the parish priest. The latter happened to be the same Father Servine who had directed the Liceo Católico where I had studied as a boy.
Father Servine could hardly believe that we were serious about getting married. We had neither the rings to exchange nor the customary ritual money. However, from the pockets of witnesses, we managed to obtain not only a sufficient quantity of small silver but also two makeshift rings, one of copper, the other of horn. Both seemed to symbolize fittingly our bizarre union.
In the same year that I completed the Preparatory School mural, I took one of the most important steps of my life—I became a member of the Communist Party.
Then, together with my painter friends David Alfaro Siqueiros and Xavier Guerrero as coeditors, I began writing for El Machete, the official newspaper of the Mexican Communist Pa
rty, and continued to do so until my expulsion from the Party.
THE MEXICAN RENAISSANCE
WHILE I WAS WORKING on my Preparatory School mural, a group of young painters began to collect around me, some of whom, fascinated by an art form new to them, became my assistants. Soon we were banding together to win acceptance for social art. We found an ally in Lombardo Toledano, the young director of the school, and thanks to him, four of my young friends were given wall space in the school equal to mine before I had even finished my own work. Scarcely had all this activity gotten under way when passionate discussions about the new art reverberated through all social strata of the city. When the Minister of Education, who had so far remained uncommitted, realized what repercussions our efforts were creating at all levels of society, he adopted our ideas and—luckily for our work—proclaimed from above the usefulness of monumental painting on the walls of public buildings.
Our group then formed the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors. Its members included José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Xavier Guerrero, Jean Charlot, Carlos Mérida, Ramón Alba, Fermín Revueltos, and the youthful Máximo Pacheco.
We applied for and received work under financial arrangements identical to those of house painters. Soon frescoes blossomed on the walls of schools, hotels, and other public buildings, in spite of violent attacks by the bourgeois intelligentsia and the press under its influence. But the workers of town and country strongly supported us—and our enemies did not prevail.