A Little Diego Rivera

The great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato in 1886 and lived his early years here. In the 1970s, two decades after Rivera's death, the government converted his birthplace into a museum: Museo Casa Diego Rivera. On this, another rainy afternoon, it was good to take a break from Mark Twain research and walk through the rooms of the Rivera house.

At the center of the house is a very small square patio with a fountain on the main floor and open sky several stories above. A wrought iron balcony lines each of the three upper floors wrapped around this central opening. (I LOVE this central patio feature of Mexican architecture.) The tile floors are a warm coffee brown, shiny, smooth, and sloping from many years of footsteps. The first floor of the house is decorated in late 19th century style with some of the Riveras' furniture, and the upper floors contain an interesting spectrum of Diego Rivera's works, including many paisajes (landscapes), retratos (portraits), and bocetos (sketches). Many of the works are from Rivera's earlier years, and many seem to be drafts or details for larger mural works. One of my favorite pieces was "La maestra rural;" one of Mark's favorites was a landscape of a hacienda.

I think of Diego Rivera as a huge hulk of a man (in Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Lacuna, one of the characters describes Rivera as an enormous toad) with an expansive vision; his great public murals reach from floor to ceiling along broad walls, conveying big spans of history. So, it was funny to pass a diminuitive statue of Rivera (pictured above) as we approached the house, and it was intriguing to see many of his smaller works. And then to read this delicate description by his wife, Frida Kahlo, next to a model of the artist's hand:

Sus hombros infantiles, angostos y redondos, se continúan sin ángulos en brazos femeninos, terminando en unas manos maravillosas, pequeñas y sutiles como antenas que comunicaron con el universo entero.

(His child-like shoulders, narrow and round, continue without angles into feminine arms, ending in marvelous hands, small and fine, sensitive and subtle like antennas that communicate with the entire universe.)