Flower Festival: Feast of Santa Anita

Rivera spent the tumultuous years of the Mexican Revolution (1910–20) painting and traveling abroad in Europe. Upon returning to his native country in 1921, he exalted indigenous Mexican people and traditions, making them a central subject of his work. As he later recalled, "My homecoming aroused an aesthetic rejoicing in me which is impossible to describe. . . . Everywhere I saw a potential masterpiece—in the crowds, the markets, the festivals, the marching battalions, the workers in the workshops, the fields—in every shining face, every radiant child." Throughout his artistic career, Rivera sought to develop art with a national identity that would serve the Mexican people. The figures and flowers in Flower Festival: Feast of Santa Anita are tightly juxtaposed and take up the entire space on the canvas; suggesting unity, a sense of endless bounty, and an appreciation for those who harvest such beauty. The stylized facial features of the background figures reflect Rivera’s fascination with pre-Columbian sculpture, of which he was an avid collector. The mural’s bold colors leap off the canvas in fantastic, well-defined order, perhaps intended to contrast with the political disorder of the country at that time. Rivera often lamented the stiffness and indifference of upper-class society toward the common folk. In Flower Festival: Feast of Santa Anita, Diego Rivera celebrates his fondness for Mexican traditions and agricultural life in a brilliant display of not only color but also historical reference. Not one to hide his views – personal or political – Rivera combines his spirituality with the cultural attitudes that shaped his life. Despite his struggles with regard to communistic issues, and the controversial Rockefeller mural project that lent a touch of infamy to his name, Diego Rivera remained among the greatest artists of the modernistic era. -- Do you appreciate our work? Find out how can you support DailyArt: http://support.getdailyart.com (the link is also below this text)