T sive loverandtherestofhisBolshevik friends wholeftParistojoinKarensky another waveofdepression.Hedid in Russia,heendedupsinkingintor not leavethehouse;hewashunched himself, communingwithhisown beneath theshellhehadputuparound misery. Itwasinthisforsakencondition was onceagainsharingwithAngelina. that hisfriendAmedeoModigliani found himonavisittothehomeDiego tionately, "Listen, Lenin hascontactedthePetrograd of workershavediedunderCossack rebel groupsfromZurich.Thousands fire andGregoryKarenskyhasoffered * DirectoroftheNationalInstitutefor Historical ' Chapterfromthe book Studies oftheMexicanRevolution.Daughter of DiegoRivera. "The Red"),byGuadalupe Rivera,Patria,Mex- ico City,inpress. Diego's cohortraidtohimaffec- he love lifeplungedRiverainto Separated fromhisexplo- inertia andhopelessness. dramaticresultsofhis mexicano, Diego ElRojo I heardthat (Diego Diego Rivera What doyousaywegotoRussia join ourfriends?" a changeinthepoliticalsituation. come backtolife.I'mtrappedina swamp, likeaskinnedfoxcaughtin my owntraps." had atalkwithAngelinathatnight. get visastoRussia.Notparticipating in theMexicanRevolutionhaspained I can'tstayonthesidelinesofanother me deeply;I'mnotgoingtomissLenin's. great revolutionandputupwiththe just abigcemetery,notonlypopulat- loneliness ofMontparnasse,animpo- tent invalid.Thisplacehasbecome ed bywardeadbutalsosomewherethe shadows ofthedepartedprowl." go Diegovich!" has takenawaymyfeelingfor life." ing megothroughout thewaryears In ' "If wemadeitModi,IthinkI'd Hoping tochangehislife,Diego "Angelina, ModiandIaretryingto "What sadthoughtsyouhave,Die- "Well, it'strue,Quiela.Frustration "I know,darling." "Look, Angelina, what'sbeenkeep- 93 has beenpoliticalstruggle.Myart you aretheonewhopaysrenton only broughtmegrief.I'msickofmy what passesforahomeandthatIcan't failures andpoverty.Ithurtsmethat earn apenny.Ican'tdoanything,even Angelina, "butIalsothinkyourun- dead thanalive." to supportourson.I'velivedmore happiness hastodowithyourdissatis- faction withyourownpainting.Right things: art,politicsandmoney.Besides now, you'reunhappyaboutallthree that, youremotionalproblemshave nearly drivenyoucrazy.You'vehadnei- ther timenorlovelefttogiveourson." You areagreatfriend.Besidesbeing generous. I'veactedlikeapigtowardthe child. You'vegivenhimeverything. easier. Allofthisdrivesmecrazy, but smart, youknowhowtomake mylife especially notbeingabletobe agood father." should. Sometimes Icommitunfor- "To acertainextent,"answered "Angelina, you'reright.You'realso "But Diego,Idon't alwaysactasI Guadalupe Rivera* ANI ■ I2lfl1 V 2F.LI'1 VOICES of • 39

givable idiocies. I hope I wasn't wrong my life. I don't even paint now; Ido any- The way the fruit and vegetables, the to take you back and let my friends the thing to earn a few cents, but it's never meat, the fish and fowl were arranged Zettlins take care of our son. It has sep- enough. I can't even earn enough as a reminded him of his old neighbor- arated us more." carpenter to eat." hoods in Mexico. "But Angelina, we don't have the "Darling, lees stop the lamentations. "Look at that, Angelina. It's mar- money to take care ofhim, or even buy It's a bright morning outside. Some velo us, just like the markets in La Mer- coal to heat the house. Besides, our fresh air would help us think more ced, where I began . I don't know friends are truly fond of the boy. When clearly about our problems. Why don't why I was such an idiot. I've forgotten things get better, I'll do everything we go out for a little walk?" about real things, colors and shapes, the possible to accept him in this house, "All right, Quiela. Let's go to that things that taught me to see and appre- and we'll bring him here." exhiba ofthe Constructors Group paint- ciate nature, especially what I saw in "You know, Diego, your rejection ings that opened yesterday. You know, and then Xichú, where I of our little boy isn't natural, even they're all friends of Elie Faure, the art grew up." though Ido understand it. You already historian. I don't even know him, but "Don't forget, Diego, we've already told me about your mother's aversion he asked Kasimir Malevich to include talked about the distortions in your to you. Don't you think you're just try- my work." painting and how it has hurt you to ing to take your revenge because of The exhibition promised to be a break with your Mexican roots." your anger at her neglecting you?" great success. Malevich was sure that "That's true. I've tried to act like a "I hadn't really thought about it. some of the canvases would be sold Spaniard, a Frenchman or a European Maybe." and he told Rivera so. and deny my real personality. That "Besides, our very poverty is prob- "Diego, very few cubists brought has done me great harm. Look, An- ably reminding you of how your fam- their work, and there are even fewer in gelina, it's enough to just compare the ily lived in , making you the realist style you're painting in now. beauty of reality with the siily, super- relive your bitter childhood. That's why I hope to sell something. let you ficial, intellectual posturing of the you're so touchy, and you can't even know." cubists." stand the child's crying." "That still life with the limes that "Of course, their coldness makes "When you look at it like that, An- I just painted, the one with a certain them the losers. If the observer doesn't gelina, you're right. The Zettlins are Cézanne-like air, looks very good on understand and appreciate geometric taking my parents' place. Just look at the wall. It just might sell. You have forms, they seem cold and foreign me, Quiela! I'm 31 years old and I can't no idea, Kasimir, how grateful I am compared to whatever they repre- even support my own family. What a for your efforts. You have no idea how sent." failure I am!" much money I need. My pockets are That's true, Quiela. You can't con- "Don't look at it like that. I'm sure empty." sider something that needs interpret- that if we try, we can change things." When they left the exhibition, ing art. Art is reality transported into "You truly love me, and I have not husband and wife, in rather a differ- the realm of aesthetics." been able to return your tenderness ent mood, headed for the maze of lit- Diego María walked over to a fruit and love. I have to be brave and stay in tle streets around their favorite open stand piled high with freshly picked this crazy country. Going to Russia air market, full of growers, peasants peaches, plums, pears and apples. Volup- would just be running away, carrying and farmers who brought their prod- tuously, he began to caress them. my old burdens on by back, my par- ucts to sell directly on the square. Every "I'll buy these peaches. Their vel- ents, my aunts, my sister. What I real- morning they carne from different vety skin have aroused my sensibility. ly have to do is the opposite: think places around Paris. The colors of the I'm going to paint them; their smell about what has happened and change produce always impressed the painter. and colors will stimulate me."

94 F Ri.

Back at the studio, he put the peach- garde to do my own kind of painting. In I'm free. So much so that I've also bro- es on a platter and carefully added the fact, I'm trying now. And even though my ken definitively with Pierre Reverdy and his group ofpedantic friends, Guillaume other fruit he had bought to make a handling of form and color still leaves a harmonious composition. He felt the lot to be desired, it's the price I have to Apollinaire, André Breton and Luis Ara- gón. The only one I still see is Max texture and forms again, looked care- pay for having painted those flat cubist fully at the colors and decided to begin surfaces for years. Like Marcel Proust, Jacob, the Russian." to paint. Over and over, to the point of start by recovering things past." "Now that you've become inde- exasperation, he drew the fines. "You have to do it before Rosem- pendent," said Amedeo, "you've be- "Dammit, Angelina!," he cried furi- berg starts to sabotage your own paint- come the precursor of the new realist ously, "I don't know what's wrong with ing. I heard that told him art. It will end up with a highly social me. I can't paint what I see and like. about your critique of your painting content and serve the needs of revolu- has corrupted my way oflook- and your intention to abandon Cubism. tionary peoples. When that happens, ing at reality. Just like Posada said, I need The 'hule shopkeeper' was furious and even your enemies will follow you. to paint what I know, what I can touch threatened to break your contract if Geometric Cubism will stop making and feel, not only imaginary things you changed your style." sense among the avant garde." or abstractions. Those cold geometric "I already know what that son of a "By the way, a few days ago I read forms, product of the intellect, are def- whore said, but Modi, I'm willing to an article by Reverdy called A Night on initely unreal; they are just offshoots of risk it. Frankly, I just can't continue in the Plain.' I found it odd," said Soutine. a false situation. I have worked and lived this deceit. Cubism is not the way to "He doesn't deal with anything right." for a deception." get my art across to ordinary people. "Where did you read it? I haven't "Calm down, Diego. You will re- Quite the opposite: I consider it art for seen it," asked Modi. cover your abilities little by little. You the bourgeoisie." "In the favorite magazine of intel- haven't lost them; you've just put them "Do you think so?" asked Soutine. lectuals and cultured ladies," said Diego, away for a while so they can emerge "Ofcourse, friend. Anyone can have " Nord-Sud (No rth-South), that has just again, stronger and more solid." an opinion about and get aesthetic sen- been founded. All Paris knows that he Diego had finished his first treatment sations from that platter of fruit. But compared me with wild Indians, jungle of his new realist painting, a large still life just look at that portrait of The Navy felines and large, agile African mon- with the windows of the workshop in Fusilier on the wall. The only people keys, besides calling me a shameful an- the background, the very place where who like that kind of thing are pom- thropoid with no appetite or virility." Soutine and Modigliani would drop in pous art lovers and snobs who practi- "Was he that furious at you?" unannounced. At that time, the three cally come when they see one of Picasso's, were good friends and both painters were Gris' or Braque's cubist ." Rivera's partners in art and revelry, despite "I agree with you Diego. I always André Salomón Amedeo's difficult personality. thought your anxiety when you were " Mexicano,1 see you are trying to painting in the cubist style was absurd," wrote an article, forget Braque and company. You seem said Modigliani. "I swear I thought you "L'affaire Rivera," to have turned toward Paul Cézanne, did it so as not fight with 'the guy from haven't you?" asked Modigliani rather Málaga' because you sincerely admire attributing Rivera's him. Isn't that why?" mockingly. return to figurative "Have you abandoned Cubism?" "You're right. I do consider him my attacked a decided Soutine. teacher. But why should I stay with painting to his failure "That's right, comrade. I have decid- him? I'm not going to follow him any ed to leave behind the Parisian avant more. I'll be myself again. In a word, as a cubist.

95 I . • 3

"He sure was. He has detested me "Look, Diego, look where your been there myself I would have a hard since the day I made a Pool of him at political ideas have gotten you! They time believing it. I spent yesterday one of the Zettlin's salons. We had a say your enemies put out that poster to afternoon with Professor Faure talking fight and I pulled off his wig. We were finish you and make you go home to about Greek and Roman art. Suddenly, arguing about Renoir and Cézanne; your country o fdirty revolutionaries." he asked me if I knew you and when I all those precious intellectuals consid- "I thought so. But they won't get said yes, he asked me to introduce you er them antiquated." their way. I know that Juan Gris and to him. He liked your paintings at the "That epitome ofvanity will never , egged on by Picasso, Constructors Group exhibition, and forgive you. The old poet doesn't like were furious because I abandoned he also knows something about your being contradicted, you can be sure of cubist orthodoxy in color and form. childhood and wants to tell you about that," put in Modigliani. They must be in league with the Saint it. He wouldn't say any more." "I agree. Reverdy will continue to Denis Quarter anticommunist group "Elie Faure wants to meet me and wreak his vengeance on you. Be care- that started this ridiculous business." knows something about my child- ful!" counseled Soutine. "Whoever it was, it's a real barrage hood? I can't believe it!" His friends were right. Diego was against you. Signing with the narre of "Yes, Diego. You know, besides being ostracized. His only remaining de- an unknown group isn't something a doctor, he's one of France's best art crit- fenders were Metzinger, Lothe and real men do. Oh, well. what are you ics and a renowned university professor. María Blanchard. His change in style going to do?" He's become nationally famous for aid- affected his relationships with the gal- "Just go on. Work. My decisions ing the wounded during the wat He has leries. Rosemberg himself, furious, have made me reassess myself. In the invited you to tea at his honre right away. asked the poet André Salomón to help end, the important thing is staying Tomorrow, ifyou can make it." him get his revenge. Salomón wrote an free and independent." "It will undoubtedly be an extraor- article, "L'affaire Rivera," attributing "You've managed that, but there dinary experience. Ofcourse I'll go. In Rivera's return to figurative painting to are still difficult day, and months any case, I want to thank him for con- his failure as a cubist and calling Die- anead. It's hard to break with people sidering me part of the Constructors go's new work a bad copy of Cézanne. who want to monopolize world art." Group." By that time, the conservatives "I know, but what the hell! I've As agreed, the two friends went to considered the Bolsheviks enemies of picked a road my road to pure Realism, Elie Faure's borne. The writer was civilization as a whole and included based on colors and topics from real buried under a mountain of books and among them the man who, because of life. First French ones and later on papers, busy preparing the second vol- his Mexican extraction, was consid- Mexican ones." ume of his classic . The ered a savage. The cubist circles iden- In the next period, the conserva- walls ofhis fabulous library were covered tified Rivera with a figure symbolizing tive "boycott" took a heavy toll. Rivera with original Matisses and Cézannes: communism in a poster, clenching a did not sell a single canvas. One after- they gave the place a touch oflight and bloody knife between his teeth. "How noon in the midst of poverty and color, emphasizing his home's overall can you not vote against Bolshevism?" hopelessness, Malevich carne to visir. good taste and sobriety. Surrounded was blazoned across the poster. How- Obviously in a hurry to reach him, by originals by his favorite painters, ever, Diego paid no attention. His Malevich took the steep stairway to Rivera felt he had been transported to defenders and loyalists warned him that the atelier two steps at a time. a little piece of the promised land. something was in the air. Alarmed, his "Mexicano, I'm so glad you're "Dr. Faure, your painting collection intimare friend Leopold Gotlieb, with here!" he exclaimed breathlessly when is magnificent!" whom he had shared a small studio, Diego opened the door. "Something After chatting about the latest in paid him a visit. unexpected has come up. If I hadn't the Paris art world and an exhibit Faure

96 LITERATURE

had recently organized, Diego said He was a very dear friend of my uncle atives and friends from the last genera- openly, "Dr. Faure, I am surprised at and myself. I'm old enough to tell you tion did, and now Rivera and I will your knowledge of modern painting. that. Please accept my friendship. I assure repeat the accomplishment in art." You have an in-depth knowledge of the you, we will be great friends. I also The conversation was interrupted work of each of the avant garde paint- learned about socialist politics and anar- by an elegantly uniformed maid carry- ers of Europe. That's clear from your chism from my uncle and Professor ing the tea service: a polished silver sa- opinions about the majority of the ar- Ledoyen, and I'm not a bit sorry for it. movar, fine Sévres ware porcelain cups, tists of today, especially my comrades." Quite the contrary, their teaching defin- teapot, creamer and sugar bowl and a "Rivera, leave that be. It's what I do itively allowed me to make my way as selection of pastries filled with choco- every day. It's my professional obligation, a humanist." late and cream, the delight ofdemand- as it were. What interests me, besides your Diego had never told Malevich ing intellectuals. very promising painting, is to ask you if how he had gotten his ideas, and Male- "Dr. Faure, you are an aesthete even you remember Ernest Ledoyen." vich could not get over his surprise; he in your hospitality. I am not surprised Paling visibly, Rivera answered could not help but speak up. at the penetrating ofKanis- doubtfully, "Do you mean my beloved "I'm very surprised, Dr. Faure. I mir: he has learned from the right man. teacher Don Ernest Ledoyen?" never imagined that a man as learn- Before I knew how Glose the two ofyou "That's right. I mean Ernest Ledoyen, ed and admired in France as yourself were academically, I was surprised by who I suppose taught you your excel- would have old ties of friendship with his profound knowledge of aesthetics lent French in Mexico." Diego, who has been 'the Mexican bar- and art. Now I understand it all." "But, sir, how do you know that?" bañan' for all of us." "It is not only our being Glose. Male- "Very simple, my friend. Very sim- "Don't be surprised, Malevich," said vich has trusted me, as I ho pe you will." ple. Ledoyen was a comrade-in-arras of Faure. "It is not people like Rivera who "Not only will I trust you; I'm sure my uncle, the geographer Elisée Reclus are the barbarians. Thinking, sensitive that today is the beginning of a lifelong during the Commune. The two met beings agree all over the world. Our rel- friendship." again when Ernest retired and returned to France. He told our family all about his life in Mexico, and he spoke of his pupil Rivera, saying he had a great future as a painter and in politics. So, when you came to Paris, my uncle saw your work and remembered the little boy Ledoyen had told him about. Then he told me some strange stories and got me interested in your work. I'm telling you this so you know in what loving memory your teacher held you." "I can't believe this. Professor Ledoyen is the person who has most influenced me in my entire life! He taught me so much about politics, literature and art, and now you bring him back to me!" "Please count on me as you once counted on him, Diego María Rivera. Diego Rivera, Portrait of , 1918 (oil on canvas).