/ The Flower Vendor (Girl with Lilies)
The Flower Vendor (Girl with Lilies)
Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886-1957)
48 x 48 in. (121.9 x 121.9 cm)
Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mr. Cary Grant
P.1980.2.3
© 2018 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Rivera was among the leading North American artists of the twentieth century, best remembered for the public murals he painted throughout Mexico and the United States. He arrived at his distinctive brand of stylized naturalism after a decade in Paris (1909-1919), where he had befriended such European artists as Picasso and Duchamp and experimented with various avant-garde approaches. Pre-Columbian art of his native country, however, would present the key source for Rivera's mature style, characterized by emphatic color, simplified forms, and a dramatic tension between flatness and three-dimensional modeling. The figure of the flower vendor formed a recurring theme in Rivera's work, appearing both in his murals and in easel paintings like this one. The Indian girl, kneeling before her pile of calla lilies—a flower associated with funerals and death—constitutes an ode at once to the beauty of Mexico's native cultures and to the suffering of her native peoples.
Cary Grant, Beverly Hills, by 1970, gift 1980 to;
Norton Simon Museum.
Diego Rivera's little Mexican peasant girl embraces a gigantic bunch of freshly cut lilies. Her homespun clothing is cheerful and neat, and her black hair is perfectly braided, with a vibrant purple ribbon. The curved stems embrace her. Their patterning continues in the folds of her blouse, emphasizing her harmonious relationship with the magnificent blooming flowers that provide her livelihood. She's the epitome of quiet dignity—poor but in no way impoverished.
Rivera's light-filled colors and solid, hard-edged style emphasize the little girl's noble simplicity. By concealing her face, Rivera elevates her to a symbol of the sacredness of the rhythms of nature in the traditional life of the Mexican people. In 1929, Rivera proclaimed:
RIVERA (ACTOR):
"There is need for an art extremely pure, precise, profoundly human, and clarified as to its purpose. An art with revolution as its subject: because the principal interest in the worker's life has to be touched. It is necessary that he find aesthetic satisfaction and the highest pleasure in the essential interest of his life."
Rivera evolved a profoundly Mexican art; his subjects are Mexican revolutionary history and politics, and the life of ordinary people. Inspired by Italian frescoes he'd seen abroad, and also by ancient Aztec frescoes, he created many large murals of biting social commentary—in public buildings in both the United States and Mexico.
Transcript of Childrens Tour
Most portraits show a person's face. But here the young woman has her back to us. She looks at the gigantic lilies, so we do, too. She seems so close to the flowers, she's almost part of them—her arms embrace them, and the folds on the back of her blouse make a pattern like those big beautiful stems on either side of her. We forget about her as an individual, and she comes to represent all women in touch with nature. See how she kneels with her arms outstretched , her head bowed? She almost looks like she's praying! There's an awe or reverence for the lush blossoms, and a quiet dignity in the woman who earns a living selling them.
Mexican artist Diego Rivera lived in Europe for many years. But after the Mexican people rose up against their government in a struggle to establish justice and make their voice heard, he returned home to express those ideas and develop a totally new Mexican art.
Rivera painted huge wall paintings about important political and social ideas. Even his smaller works, like this Flower Vendor, celebrate the culture and traditions of the Mexican people.
Check out the lower left-hand corner. Instead of just signing his name, Rivera put it in a little painted book. Next time you make a work of art, maybe you can come up with a fun way to sign your name!