Diego Rivera and Picasso took a love-hate relationship in one of the most effervescent moments for the history of art.
The intricate relationship between Diego Rivera and Picasso is not just a myth and is inscribed in letters that both exchanged. From 1909 to 1920, Rivera spent his days among the intellectuals and painters of Paris, in the Montparnasse district.
Imagine a Rivera between Mondrian, Modigliani, Jean Cocteau and the effervescence of the Cubist movement, which still lacked any manifesto (and therefore did not have a formal definition). Nobody knew exactly what it was, but Rivera’s work in this sense was not accepted as pure Cubism either. From a painting by this Mexican, ‘Paisaje Zapatista’ , a controversy so scandalous arose that it distanced him from Picasso forever.
Rivera had claimed that Picasso plagiarized this work in his painting ‘Man leaning on a table’. And it was not any issue, because the ‘Zapatista Landscape’ symbolized in some way the entry of Mexico into the Cubist movement with its own air. Both stopped being friends for this subject in 1916.
With time they maintained certain correspondence, but only referring to political and plastic issues.
In an interview with the Cuban Loló de la Torriente about the relationship between the two painters, Rivera confessed missing that old enemy and teacher:
“I can not deny that I miss that focus of evil that Picasso and I established. For something the huge teacher reminds me and through friends and acquaintances who come and go from Paris I receive their messages asking me to return, that they are bored and that he is sure that I get bored because only he and I, talking to each other, know do it right talking bad about people, and this is really fun in this world. In this sense, I really miss the great painter and friend enormously. “
Author: Ana Paula de la Torre DiazA career political scientist, she collaborates for various digital publications such as Pijama Surf. Creator of the citizen project yanostoca.com. And occasional painter (http://bit.ly/2jkE8lD)
Source: masdemx
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