拍品專文
One of Diego Rivera's most lyrically beautiful paintings of the 1940s is the Lily Seller. This oil on masonite was painted in 1942 and illustrates a subject that became one of the themes most closely identified with Rivera's career.
1942 was a crucial year for Diego Rivera. After a long hiatus he had returned to work on the frescos in the National Palace in Mexico City's main square (zocalo), one of the mural projects which had occupied him at various moments from 1929 onward. For the second floor courtyard he painted a complex representation of several pre-hispanic cultures including the Tarascans and Zapotecs. The iconography of indigenous peoples had long held an important place in Rivera's oeuvre as he considered them the embodiment of Mexican cultural and civilization in its purest forms. also in 1942 Rivera began construction on a building that had been a long-cherished goal. Having formed a collection of pre-Columbian art numbering over sixty thousand pieces, the artist wished to create a monument to house these objects. He thus designed the monumental structure which he called Anahuacalli near his house in Coyoacan. Construction continued intermittently until the time of his death in 1957.
Diego's oils of this period seemed to reflect the oscillation of his moods between optimistic self-assurance and pessimism. The Second World War had been developing in Europe since the end of the previous decade. The United States entered the war in December of 1941 but Mexico remained neutral. However, when a German submarine attacked and sank two Mexican tankers in May of 1942, Mexico was forced to enter the conflict. Rivera's eerie war-time composition entitled Postguerra (1942, Guanajuato, Museo-Casa Diego Rivera) depicts a gnarled, humanoid tree lifting its branches heaven-ward as if in supplication. This quasi-surreal picture can be related to some of Salvador Dali's equally bizarre compositions of these years such as his 1936 Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of the Civil War (New York, MoMA). In a completely different vein, however, Rivera painted and drew a number of images of Mexican peasants holding or standing next to large bouquets or baskets filled with calla lilies. The most highly successful of these compositions is the Vendedora de Flores.
Rivera had been investigating the expressive potential of the calla lily (a flower not native to the American continent but to Africa) since at least the early 1920s when, in his murals for the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico City (1923-1924) he included a scene depicting Good Friday traditions on the Canal at Santa Anita. Here the sadness recalled by these events is mitigated by the grand profusion of flowers including an abundance of calla lilies.
In Mexico calla lilies are often used in a funerary context. Good Friday altars are, for example, often bedecked with calla lilies. Other Mexican artists have used this flower as a symbol of sorrow. See, for instance, Olga Costa's Dead Child of 1944 (Mexico, private collection) in which voluptuousness of both the human and the floral subjects are stressed, there is a solemn, hieratic feeling to the paintings of this theme. In the Vendedora as in many other paintings Rivera was highly inspired by pre-hispanic sculpture. The female figure in the Vendedora de Flores is block-like and still. She is caught at the moment she is about to arise with the heavy burden strapped to her back. She is aided by a man who is virtually unseen except for the top of his head and his shoes. There is, undoubtedly, an implied melancholy in this picture - a contrast between the beauty of the flowers and the difficult labor of the woman. The irony of the situation depicted has by no means been lost on Rivera. While creating an image of delicate grace and charm he is, at the same time, making a trenchant comment on the plight of the peons of Mexico who struggle to earn a minuscule wage by performing often herculean tasks. By using the symbol of the calla lily the artist could make a picture that was highly pleasing to the eye while paying homage to the perennially downtrodden people of his country.
Edward Sullivan, New York, July 1991
1942 was a crucial year for Diego Rivera. After a long hiatus he had returned to work on the frescos in the National Palace in Mexico City's main square (zocalo), one of the mural projects which had occupied him at various moments from 1929 onward. For the second floor courtyard he painted a complex representation of several pre-hispanic cultures including the Tarascans and Zapotecs. The iconography of indigenous peoples had long held an important place in Rivera's oeuvre as he considered them the embodiment of Mexican cultural and civilization in its purest forms. also in 1942 Rivera began construction on a building that had been a long-cherished goal. Having formed a collection of pre-Columbian art numbering over sixty thousand pieces, the artist wished to create a monument to house these objects. He thus designed the monumental structure which he called Anahuacalli near his house in Coyoacan. Construction continued intermittently until the time of his death in 1957.
Diego's oils of this period seemed to reflect the oscillation of his moods between optimistic self-assurance and pessimism. The Second World War had been developing in Europe since the end of the previous decade. The United States entered the war in December of 1941 but Mexico remained neutral. However, when a German submarine attacked and sank two Mexican tankers in May of 1942, Mexico was forced to enter the conflict. Rivera's eerie war-time composition entitled Postguerra (1942, Guanajuato, Museo-Casa Diego Rivera) depicts a gnarled, humanoid tree lifting its branches heaven-ward as if in supplication. This quasi-surreal picture can be related to some of Salvador Dali's equally bizarre compositions of these years such as his 1936 Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of the Civil War (New York, MoMA). In a completely different vein, however, Rivera painted and drew a number of images of Mexican peasants holding or standing next to large bouquets or baskets filled with calla lilies. The most highly successful of these compositions is the Vendedora de Flores.
Rivera had been investigating the expressive potential of the calla lily (a flower not native to the American continent but to Africa) since at least the early 1920s when, in his murals for the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico City (1923-1924) he included a scene depicting Good Friday traditions on the Canal at Santa Anita. Here the sadness recalled by these events is mitigated by the grand profusion of flowers including an abundance of calla lilies.
In Mexico calla lilies are often used in a funerary context. Good Friday altars are, for example, often bedecked with calla lilies. Other Mexican artists have used this flower as a symbol of sorrow. See, for instance, Olga Costa's Dead Child of 1944 (Mexico, private collection) in which voluptuousness of both the human and the floral subjects are stressed, there is a solemn, hieratic feeling to the paintings of this theme. In the Vendedora as in many other paintings Rivera was highly inspired by pre-hispanic sculpture. The female figure in the Vendedora de Flores is block-like and still. She is caught at the moment she is about to arise with the heavy burden strapped to her back. She is aided by a man who is virtually unseen except for the top of his head and his shoes. There is, undoubtedly, an implied melancholy in this picture - a contrast between the beauty of the flowers and the difficult labor of the woman. The irony of the situation depicted has by no means been lost on Rivera. While creating an image of delicate grace and charm he is, at the same time, making a trenchant comment on the plight of the peons of Mexico who struggle to earn a minuscule wage by performing often herculean tasks. By using the symbol of the calla lily the artist could make a picture that was highly pleasing to the eye while paying homage to the perennially downtrodden people of his country.
Edward Sullivan, New York, July 1991