Diego Rivera Court Essay

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Madhu Vishnu Sankar Reddy RamiReddy
Ms. Mendola
English 10
9 January 2017
Rivera Court
“To be an artist, one must . . . never shirk from the truth as he understands it, never withdraw from life,” said Diego Rivera, a Mexican muralist. He followed his own words by creating the Rivera Court. Consisting of twenty seven panels and taking eleven months to complete, the Rivera Court, currently held in the DIA, is arguably the best Mexican mural in the United States. Throughout his life, all his works had a deeper and more important meaning. In fact, his paintings were thought to be capable of telling stories. The Rivera Court, by Diego Rivera attempted to protest the harsh conditions of Detroit’s auto industry.
As a result of the development of self-powered automobiles and the American Interstate Highway System, the auto industry in Detroit was booming in 1932. In fact, majority of the jobs were in the manufacturing sector. …show more content…

He portrays this in the Rivera Court through several fascinating aspects. Firstly, the mural itself was only a drawing on plaster. Later, he used a technique called fresco, which lets the paint penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries (“DIA”). This is similar to the way he wanted this message to be fixated in the minds of the people. In addition, two of the main panels of the Rivera Court are on the North and South walls. These depict laborers working at Ford Motor Company's River Rouge Plant. The workers are shown to be working together on a strenuous act. Also, on the upper left-hand side of the North wall, there are a group of worker whose “skin is eerie green” (“DIA”). This shows that he believes that the auto industry is tough and laborious and has unsafe working conditions.. He attempts to point out the dark and the unsafe side of the auto industry. Diego Rivera portrayed what he thought was true without

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