Customer Reviews

Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Discovery Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With various books written on the life of Diego Rivera this one is a must have. Anytime a subject is studied, it this case the life of arguably the greatest Mexican muralist, it is worthwhile to have various perspectives before coming to one's own conclusion. In that regard this book is invaluable as the author doesn't give you a softball and is quick to point out the inconsistencies in other versions of the larger than life Diego Rivera's exploits, including his own autobiography. The book itself is a fascinating portrait into the life of the celebrated Mexican muralist's life, beginning with the unusual circumstnances of his youth, his sojourn to Europe and studying art in France, his mingling in the bohemian lfestyle with various artists and intellectuals of his era, including his at times not so friendly rivalry with Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, his return to Mexico, his politics(communist) and the troubles he had since he usually mixed art and politics, his many, many love affairs, his multiple marriages including several to soul mate Frida Kahlo, his association with Trotsky(and his wife), his work in the United States and his later years in Mexico where he remained productive in spite of failing health. It is all here, both the believable and the unbelieveable, meshing together for a fascinating look at a man that could literally charm the pants off of the most beautiful women of the world. Included are two seperate groups of pictures that include rarely seen vintage photographs and color prints of his most famous works. Every now and then I read a book that I want to savor and take my time. Like a special meal or an intimate moment, this book was one that I wanted to savor once I began. I wanted to make it last because it was so enjoyable, knowing that the inevitable consequence of my reading would make it end I almost regretted finishing the book. I took days to read the final chapters in the hope that somehow the experience would not end. I would highly recommend this book to those that are interested in Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Mexican art or history. It is a book that paints more than a picture, it is more like a grand mural that captures the fantastic life of Diego Rivera. This is a highly enjoyable book and an indispensable aid in understanding the complex makeup of one of the true giants of art in the twentieth century.

There are an endless array of biographies of Diego Rivera, some are good, some are not so good. Some focus on just the life, or just the art, or just the politics. Patrick Marnham tackles every aspect of Rivera with amazing detail and accuracy. He addresses the myths and follows them up with actual fact. His writing shows great respect for the life of Diego Rivera without falling victim to the fables that plague so many other biographers. I use this as the standard by which to judge all other writing about Diego Rivera. You don't need all of the other books, just this one.

I am finding this an excellent complement to the recent (and also highly readable) biography of photgrapher Tina Modotti, who documented his murals. I've read other Marnham work and find his felicitous style eminently readable. His digressions always provide a useful context for the subject, and his research has been thorough.

Marnham's biography provides a rotund, finely textured portrait worthy of the rotund Rivera. Marnham's Rivera is a technically blessed meta-Mexican eternally adapting his extraordinary gifts and solitary vision to the economic and political exigencies of Europe, Mexico, and the United States. Marnham's Rivera loves only art and as a consequence was - as we all now know - a bad husband, bad father and horrible politician but - as we may not know- never truly a bad man. Marnham is able to write with enormous respect for Rivera without losing his critical edge. For example, throughout the book, Marhnam's continuously tests Rivera's own autobiographical assertions against more conventional notions of truth with amusing irony but without condescension. Marnham never loses sight of Rivera's genius.

The biography contributes fascinating details about Rivera's European years from his studies in Spain to his days/nights as a sometimes participant of the cafe society of the Free Republic of Montparnasse. Likewise, Marnham's discussion of the Rivera/ Kahlo visits to the United States is fascinating. Though this fills in large gaps in Rivera scholarship, my major criticism is that Marnham failed to dedicate comparable effort to Rivera's role in the intellectual currents of post-revolutionary Mexico. For instance, scarce mention is devoted to the contrasts and rivalries between Rivera, and the other notable mutalists of his day, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Marnham also ignores Rivera's artistic legacy in Mexico or the United States. While Rivera did not invent nor perhaps truly even master mural art, Rivera is certainly the premier inspiration for "public" artists on both sides of the border.

For an interesting and literate discussion of Rivera and Mexican muralism, I recommend Octavio Paz, Essays on Mexican Art.

Diego Rivera was born in the magical city of Guanajuato. This fact alone made me pick up this book and then buy it. I visited Guanajuato in 2002 and fell in love with the twisty roads, the Baroque facades of the Templos and the Basilica, the Easter-egg colored houses and the general feeling that one had been dropped down in a 18th Century Spanish town. Rivera left it with his mother at the age of six, but the city of his birth, with its recent mummies and Day of the Dead festivals left its mark on him.

Rivera lived in Mexico City until 1907, when he left for Spain and for the next 15 years lived there and in France. He picked up a common-law wife and then a lover- a portent of things to come. He met and was friends (or sometimes enemies) with some of the greatest artists of the period, including Picasso, Mondrian, Modigliani and Matisse. He worked in classic style until he accepted Cubism, only to move toward Cezanne-style art, and eventually to develop his own style. He eventually became one of the greatest of modern fresco painters. However, his character was far from flawless. He lied about his past often and in different ways, depending on the situation, was not very careful about personal hygiene, and also often ran away from relationships to avoid unpleasant realities.

Rivera joined the Mexican Communist Party (MCP) in 1922. After three failures at having a permanent relationship with a woman, he married the rather obsessional young Communist Frida Kahlo (who was twenty years his junior) in 1929. In that same year he was expelled from the MCP because of various internal party intrigues. He then became friends with the exiled Leon Trotsky, who repaid him by having a short affair with Frida. Frida, to make matters more complicated, was repaying Rivera for his affair with her sister. Because of his association with Trotsky, Rivera was not readmitted to the party again until 1954, after the death of Stalin. This summery only touches on and can hardly do justice to the complicated world of Diego Rivera, one of the most complex of men.

Patrick Marnham presents in this book the convoluted ins and outs of Rivera's life, his many affairs and his association with the art world and the Communist Party in vivid detail.

This is a fascinating study of this very complex and often selfish man who was also a great artist. It is also a window into a very confusing and turbulent time in the history of the World. It is a work that should be read by all interested in understanding this period and the modern world that rose from it.

No footnotes, inadequate bibliography, and surprisingly, almost no mistakes. He reports on time and place in a constructive way and dispels Rivera's own myths about himself humorously. Very good read.

Dreaming With His Eyes Open is an exhaustive biography on the life and times of one of the most complex artists (in my opinion) I have read about. It's 317 pages of margin-to-margin text, plus a colorful insert of selected works and appendixes with chronology, source notes, and a most complete bibliography. This is one of those biographies that, once you get into it, you feel almost as if you were tagging along unseen through Rivera's life with him and his colorful, to say the least, family, friends, and acquaintances.

The book takes you from Rivera's childhood in Mexico to his student painting days in Paris, Moscow, and Spain to his success in Mexico as a muralist and then on to a productive, but turbulent, period in the 1930s in the United States. It ends with his later artistic life in Mexico.

Before reading the book, I had only the briefest knowledge of Rivera as a muralist and the husband of Frida Kahlo, an artist in her own right and whose life is the subject of many books. What I did not know is that he was quite a force not only in art but also as a political figure. I get the impression that he was equally as famous for his mural artwork as he was for his socialist views, many of which are portrayed in his murals. He and Frida Kahlo were members of the Communist party in Mexico and even entertained Leon Trotsky in their famed Casa Azul home in the late 1930s.

There's way too much detailed information in the book to cover in a review, but one of threads in the book is Rivera's famous and infamous infidelities. I lost count of the number of his affairs with many women, even including Kahlo's sister.

One episode I found interesting was his business dealings with the Rockefeller family and a mural commissioned for the opening of Rockefeller Center in 1933. Without going into all the intriguing details, it was ultimately destroyed before it was unveiled due to Rivera's adding a portrait of Lenin, which was not in the original design of the mural.

I am surprised that other readers enjoyed this book, especially readers who like Rivera. I had the distinct impression that the author, Patrick Marnham, did not like Rivera. Rivera's larger than life personality can probably not be claimed to be understood by many people, and perhaps Marnham's total want of understanding is the source for his dislike.

While this could be one of several books to read about Diego Rivera it should not be relied heavily upon. Marnham does not seem to approve of many of the characters he writes about in this book . I don't think he has an appreciation for colorful people. I felt he was a very supressed and uptight person writing about some very free spirits.

A biography of Rivera seemed a poor subject choice for him. Perhaps being an art critic would be a better suited undertaking for him. Or maybe since his grasp of history seems good his temperment would be better suited to writing dry fact based history than attempting to discern the subtlties of the human character.

He made several assertions that he represented as fact. One that springs to mind was that Frida Kahlo commited suicide. While that May be true, it also may not be true.

Marnham collected information about Diego Rivera, where he went, when he went , etc, but gave no real sense of warmth of Diego Rivera. Since Rivera was a man of such great passion it was disappointing to have only a two dimensional portrait of him drawn. I felt I knew alot more of Marnham's personality after reading this book than of Rivera's. But touché I felt much the same about Marnham as he did Rivera, I didn't like him much.