Читать книгу Conversations with Diego Rivera - Alfredo Cardona Peña - Страница 10

AT THE FOOT OF THE FOUNTAIN

What is a painter?

A painter is, just as any artist, the product of the society in which he lives; individually, a being possessing a neuro-glandular system and an ocular apparatus that aids him in his work, agents that are nothing but receptive conductors, transmitting apparatuses for the aspirations, desires and struggles of the masses that intervene in the medium produced.

What is a picture?

A surface, level or not, covered by colors that determine forms and volumes in space.

And what is a color?

A vibration that affects the photoelectric cells of the retina in a particular way and transmits it to the brain, which then passes it to the endocrine-sympathetic system producing repercussions in accordance with the nature of the vibration, and finally exciting glandular secretions.

What is propaganda art?

All art is propaganda. Sometimes its content reveals the kind of message involved. In other cases, it is veiled ingeniously. The Crucifixion by Mathias Grünewald is propaganda for the devout Christian; the lovers of cardinals playing the role of virgins or saints was propaganda to the taste and liking of papal power, or the Still Life by Chardin, showing a slice of bread, a bottle of wine, a plate of food and a knife, was propaganda for the French Revolution, which called bread bread and wine wine, contrary to the chromes of the Rococo period showing the whoring duchesses and the gigolo dandies as nymphs and satyrs. Any battle painting is propaganda in favor of what was lost. Each Venetian painting depicting a moonlit night with a handsome gondolier rowing lovers is propaganda for the whorehouses of this earth. It doesn’t matter how abstract a painting is. From Kandinsky on, to the last of his followers, it has all been propaganda. Those who maintain to be of no party, and who are quick to sell their work to left-wing, center or right-wing buyers, with no problem or inconvenience, practice the most open of propagandas, the most political, the most opportunistic and abject of them.

Should art be political?

Art should be nothing but art, but there is not a single activity, including prayer and love, that isn’t essentially political. It’s not for nothing that Aristotle defined man, with marvelous clarity and precision, as a political animal. In our time the definition gets inverted, but changing the factors doesn’t alter the result.

How is a mural painted?

You choose the wall, or take what is offered without a choice in the matter. You conceive what you are going to paint and, if you are a muralist, you continue the work of the architect, bearing in mind the circumstances that condition the location, objectively and subjectively. If you are not a muralist, you pay no attention to such factors. In both cases, the surface of the wall is covered as if it were the canvas of a picture, producing forms and volumes in space.

What do you seek in a portrait, the anecdote or the concept?

The anecdote helps me fix the attention on a moment in the existence of the subject, and once this is fixed, to reach the plasticity of the concept.

In what part of the face lies the secret of its expression?

The secret depends on the relation of the whole to its parts, and it is precisely the right expression of these relations and their own characteristics that make the portrait the supreme objective of the art of painting, since it becomes the relatively fixed image of a human existence thanks to the work of another human being.

Do you paint what you think or what you see?

I can’t paint without seeing or thinking, therefore I think depending on what I see and paint what I see and think. When previously unseen forms are painted, they have been thought-of beforehand. The plastic characteristics of a painting conceived in that fashion depend on whether they have been seen in the palette or on the canvas. We then modify those forms, quantities, qualities and specific relations according to our sensibilities.

What is cubism?

Cubism is the art of not placing the chamber pot on the dining room table.

And expressionism?

Expressionism can only be defined by German critics prior to the war.

Impressionism?

According to master Manet’s definition, it means to paint the way a bird sings.

How do you feel about the Aztec Codices?

In a passionate way. My drawings resemble the codices the way a prickly pear resembles another prickly pear because they are the fruit of the same Mexican cactus plant.

What was your impression when you got to know the Bonampak murals?

I naively confess that I felt a great emotion and a vague fear when I saw them in photographs and reproductions, especially the battle scene, because it really looked as if I had done them one day when I surely painted better than I do now. Then I laughed at myself since we are mathematically the same and I am just one of the many that painted Bonampak, and who will continue while Mexico is Mexico and we love it with all and each of the cells of our organisms.

Who are the best critics?

Those whose interests are affected vitally by the form and content of a work of art.

How much money do you have?

Generally, the last amount I have been paid and haven’t spent. Frequently, zero pesos, zero cents, because I always have much more I want to spend than money to do it.

If you are an artist of the people, why do you paint the portraits of bourgeois women?

Because there is nothing I love more in this life than a good-looking woman, and fortunately, beauty comes with different characteristics according to social class. If someone accuses me of making circumstantial portraits for tourists, he can go to the devil. Indian themes acquire greater depth for me because I love them the most.

What is man’s origin?

Man’s origin is the first inter-relative function outside space, measurable in earthly energy and matter; we may add that matter is invariably a form of energy. Consequently, the mind, horrified by this obvious simplicity, has designated this energy-matter complex (that necessary and eternal atom of Epicurus) with the most extravagant names, for example: God.

In which way is Indian romanticism healthy?

Master Dario said it already: “Who is it that isn’t a romantic?” In the first place, what is Indian constitutes the only beauty produced by the location where it is born. Consequently, it is superior intrinsically and extrinsically to any subsequent product. The half-breed and the white in America are not a happy biological product. Everything in America that is valuable and significant is rooted in the Indian world, and just as the work of giant types like Walt Whitman, Mexican painting needs to be called giant. When it comes to that which doesn’t contain an indigenous basis, Mr. Papini was right: if you could show me a single Latin or Hispanic-American that is essentially original, I would go barefoot on a pilgrimage to ask forgiveness from the Virgin of Guadalupe. It should be well understood that by its own abstract characteristics, the poetic emotion can’t be localized in the soil that produces it, even when I can find works here of as high a quality as anywhere else in the world. For us, without the Indian component, it wouldn’t be possible to be original. America is a composite of voices emitted by our Jewish forefathers when they discovered the Antillean coasts after a time of navigating terrors. It is also a Toltec term (amerika) that means “country with mountains in its center.” That’s exactly what our continent is like. As a consequence of that (or without a romantic consequence), in these lands all that which isn’t by its root and base indigenous, and which doesn’t project itself in time as a national kind of indigenous nature, embracing past, present, and future, will lack life and is of no value.

What is art for?

Art is meant to produce in a human being an aesthetic emotion, a unique phenomenon due to the proper and complete provocation that, passing through the neuro-sympathetic system, moves its adjacent glands so that these may yield their secretions to the organism. This is as necessary to life as those products that feed the digestive system. In consequence, if art is not made, there is a danger of death.

Why are retablos so vital?

Because being paintings by the people and for the people, the folk condense in them what remains of their past genius and all that it can be with what remains.

Your concept of Mexican music?

The only Mexican music is that made using the teponaxtli, the huéhuetl, the tlapanhuéhuetl, the kena, the percussive gourds, etc. when Mexicans use them. Mexican music is also the transposition of a pre-Hispanic musical core into the present day, meaning the works of Carlos Chavez, not only his marvelous Sinfonía India, not only his H.P. [Horse-Power: Ballet Symphony, —edit.], but also his more classical works where he arrives at a purity equal to the palaces of Mitla. Chavez is one of the most ignored Mexicans due to the fact that, as has invariably happened throughout the history of art, those artists who express the life of humankind most completely and profoundly, go through a period when those same masses reject them, sometimes violently, and come to hate the essential and superior image of themselves contained in that art, which is, after all, their very expression. Sometimes people are frightened, or offended, before the real and true image of themselves which art has uncovered. That is why there are so many people who not only reject Chavez’ value as a creator, but refuse to recognize his role as one of the great builders of our contemporary culture. Neither do I undervalue other artists in close historical proximity to Chavez: men such as Silvestre Revueltas and Blas Galindo. I dearly love their music. Their work is flesh of the flesh, bones of the bones and nerves of the nerves of our Mexican painting, since one could not exist without the others.

And your concept of Mexican architecture?

Mexican architecture ended in the last days of the pre-Hispanic world (architecture, by the way, which one shouldn’t call Mexican but Anahuatlaca; in other words, American). We could say that it survived potentially in rural homes and in huts of elemental though perfect beauty, and which saw a geographic resurgence conquering the entire globe, as architects of Central Europe stated when gathered in Berlin in 1928. Fortunately today, after the lamentable grotesqueries threatening to convert our city into one of the most horrible on earth with that vulgarity, pretentiousness and ugliness comparable only with San Antonio, Texas, or pseudo-Arizona, a new generation of young architects is coming up showing evident talent, some of them true geniuses. They continue cultivating in Mexico the seeds that the giant of the north throws at us by the fistful, but using our own modality.

What is your concept of Mexican sculpture?

There is a man who began sculpting when he was 52 years old and a porter and cook at the School of Painting in the open air in Coyoacan, after rising from peonage to managing a hacienda. At 72 he had realized ten magnificent sculptures. That man can be assumed to be the only such affirmation to come from that weird desert that droughts and floods had brought, precisely where for over two thousand years the greatest sculpture in the world had been made. Today, he is an extraordinary individual, a good medical doctor, curing children and workers without charge. He had begun in obscurity to simply make sculptures, which, in their plastic value, are neither better nor worse than what was made thousands of years ago. Seeing his work we are aware that they are the same since Anahuac continues to exist. Their natural contents are not the cosmology of the Popol Vuh, but the dialectic material of Marx, Engels and Joseph Stalin. The name of that sculptor is Francisco Arturo Marín. All that is needed is the example of a generative germ from our soil for the entire territory to be covered by similar items. There are bright youth from whom we can expect a renaissance of our sculpture.

What about Mexican poetry?

I like the songs of Netzahualcóyotl, the lyrics of indigenous songs that have survived, the mestizo poems of Ramón López Velarde and the very Mexican poetry of the great word-painter Carlos Pellicer. I also like the poetry of that genius, Guadalupe Amor.

Can you give us a key thought that biographers and historians of the future can quote from this work, since you yourself will have chosen it to encompass your life?

I could adopt the motto of Charles of Bourbon: “I had no need of hope to begin with, nor of success to persevere.”

How was your childhood?

My childhood was that of a child without a childhood.

What about your awakening, your youth, your first amazement?

From the age of three to six years, I drew machines and battles. Most times I’d invent the first mentioned, not as an image for the sake of the image, but as an expression of the actual object I had devised. I would draw imaginary battles based on the tales my father told of his campaigns against the French intervention and Empire. For a long time I refused to draw mountains in spite of the fact that I lived surrounded by them in Guanajuato, the reason being that I didn’t know them from within.

Asked by my father why I didn’t draw them, I explained the reason and he patiently took me to visit as many mines as he could. I was fascinated, and full of excitement, I went down using the winches, walking the galleries, bumping into rocks with my feet. After that experience the locomotives I drew at five years of age went across bridges and through tunnels while the soldiers of my battles fought above them.

That same need made me fall madly in love with mechanical toys. There was only one store where they were sold, and it is still there in Guanajuato. The Flower Castle sold candy, pastries, and toys. The proprietor then was a Frenchman, don Enrique Regnie, who had come to Mexico as a conscript among many of the invading armies. He was my father’s friend and I was the rapt audience to the accounts of their campaigns. Each time he received a new toy to sell, he would place it strategically in a showcase in the window and I, who was forever checking the store, would catch sight of the novelty and, if I liked it (I only went for machines), I would begin to court the toy as if it were a girl; I’d feel feverish and would blush as I went back and forth in front of that case, glancing sideways at it. Then I would look at it for hours until I could declare my love. I’d march into The Flower Castle and, without any compunction, I would summarily order don Enrique: “Have this sent to my house and jot it down on my father’s account.”

I would caress the toy with the same sensuality I’d use with my nana Antonia’s breasts, or my mother’s, years after I had stopped nursing. Then I would try to make it work, and as soon as I knew clearly how it functioned, I’d take it apart to get to know its guts—as with the mountains—and put it together again sure of myself. Sometimes the toy was destroyed, something that has happened to my life many times.

I was proud to have invented a locomotive that didn’t resemble any other I had seen. It had a conic boiler placed on a platform ending at the chimney’s cylinder, with the fire beneath. The steam would activate a vertical piston on the platform that would directly move the back wheels.

An uncountable number of years later, in New York, Nelson Rockefeller, to whom I had told that childhood memory, invited me to lunch with some engineers and architects at Rockefeller Center and the Transportation Club. The lunch was being served in a private room. Well, in the middle of a table with photos of all kinds on machines, was something I couldn’t believe: a large picture of a locomotive from some Pennsylvania mine functioning as I had envisioned one when I was four years of age. People in Guanajuato used to call me “the engineer,” but now I don’t deal with mechanics, I don’t think they were wrong since it is only possible to be a painter, a sculptor, or an architect if you are a plastic engineer; in other words, someone who understands the nature and functioning of the materials he handles.

Among the mechanical toys at the Flower Castle, one day I discovered a doll that impressed me in a new way. It was very large, more or less the size of a girl my age, and I noticed that it resembled one of the girls I knew, Virginia Mena. Instead of playing dumb in front of the case, one Sunday I decided to have her come with me to see the doll, my head abuzz, trying to figure out how I would manage to take the doll apart, get to know its mechanism, and put her back together again. I recall that on the way I felt strange, and that frightened me at first.

In that state, I arrived at her house. I was wearing new shoes and made sure they made a noise on the pavement. I really felt as if my blood was boiling, that it would burst out in a stream from my ears. I arrived at her door after making a lot of noise as I walked. She happened to be in their downstairs hallway, all dolled up in a white embroidered dress with a cobalt blue underpinning. Like the doll, her curls fell on her shoulders. The dress revealed her neck, chest and arms. I felt something I had never experienced before as my eyes surveyed her down to her calves. Her ankles made me understand right away how important such things were. Her feet were tiny and were encased in bejeweled shoes. My blood was surging like the tide, as if it were the river that overran the town at times of floods. As I stood at the entrance, I don’t know what gesture she made, what moves; the fact is that when she saw me, Virginia opened her eyes wide, raised her arms, and let out a tremendous scream. That scream resonated within my skull. I couldn’t help it, I fell to the floor senseless.

What happened then?

Much later I woke up at home, where Melesio, the hired hand who always followed me everywhere at a distance without interfering, had taken me. Next to my bed was my mother, repeating nothing but “God help me, God help me,” and shaking her head. My great aunt was there also, peeking at me sadly without saying a word; my father too, with that friendly expression he reserved for me. He found some pretext to get rid of my mom and great aunt and when we were alone, he had a big smile on his face. He pulled my ear and all he said was, “Gosh, you pug-nosed devil, you sure had the hots for her!”

This whole thing took place days before my birthday party when not only would I be five years old, but I had already learned on my own how to read and write, so strong was my tremendous passion to find out what books had to say.

That day, a worried look on my face, Father said to me, “Don’t go thinking I didn’t want you to have a good time today. I went early to the Menas and asked the colonel to bring Virginia to you, but unfortunately, the whole family had gone off to their hacienda.”

His words made me feel a mixture of satisfaction and humiliation; all I could hold onto was that I had lost my senses in the desire to possess Virginia. So I answered my father angrily, “Why are you involved in what’s not your business? If I had wanted to, I would have gotten the doll; you’ve never known before about my asking them to send toys over. Now I want neither toys nor Virginia.” Furious, I stomped the floor with my foot while making fists and repeating, “Do you get it? I don’t want toys or Virginia now!”

Father didn’t lose his cool. He assumed an extremely affable look and said, “Good, good, wait a minute. He went to his room and came back carrying a gorgeous revolver, enameled in nickel, its handle mother-of-pearl. He also brought a basket full of ammunition, and he said, “Here’s your birthday present for this year; I didn’t want to give it to you so soon, but it’s better that you familiarize yourself with the gun before you have an accident with it. Learn how to handle it right away. It’s not beside the point to say that it can be used as a show-piece in front of those buddies of yours, your newly acquired friends, the Mejia Mora girls.” He broke off with a hearty laugh while he pulled at one of my ears, adding, “Those gals don’t scream like Virginia when you come near them, eh?”

I suppose that my father was either giving me more credit than I was due or, in his great wisdom, was choosing to push me forward so that I could fulfill soon what, one day or another, had to happen. Besides, what my new friends were all about was absolutely correct. The Mejia girls were marvelous then. In those days, miners had their pockets full of pesos by the weekend; those girls nailed a gold coin to the bone tips of their boots, which hugged their ankles and calves like a glove. The sound they made each time one of those stupendous gals paraded her infinite charms over the cobblestone streets and alleys of Guanajuato was precious.

Their hair was exceedingly black, loose or braided, reaching down to their waistlines. And that hair never lacked for a flower. They wore aggressive ones that came down their ears and reached the corner of their mouths with their scorpion-like tendrils. They painted great scars on their cheeks, and their blouses, skirts, and shawls stood out with their bright colors. Since then, I adore cobalt blues, cadmium yellows, and the strong red Indians call tlapalli. I also go for the odor of perfumed water and gross, inexpensive perfumes.

I got to be six years old in this manner, at which time I made a speech from the main altar of the Church of San Diego against the collectors of tithes, privileges, and alms (I have told his story many times and everyone thinks it’s a lie, but my friend, Mrs. Amalia Caballero de Castillo Ledón checked its veracity scientifically when she stayed in Guanajuato attending a conference on history). I recall other happenings, among them having executed a pencil drawing of a beloved lady when I was twelve years old, studying under don Andrés Ríos. This surprised all my teachers and earned me a stipend of twenty pesos a month, turning me into a careless student and a rake.

I was a pretty boy who learned the philosophy of life under an admirable teacher nicknamed The Baby from Begoña, an undefeatable ball player. He taught me how the most popular Lady of the Theatre, adored by all, from the president of the republic down to the humblest shoeshine boy, including a multimillionaire, was in a position to accept gifts. Because of all this I can assure you I grew up a child without a childhood, if you call childhood that false life in limbo that the criminal stupidity of adults forces minors to endure.

“Nobody ignores,” as Wenziner has said, “that Diego Rivera was an exceptionally precocious child.”

This precociousness, as we’ve seen, manifested itself from the age of five, solidifying itself subsequently into a powerful visual memory. Rivera could recall faces and colors from seventy years back, and enjoyed evoking an infancy fully awakened to nature.

What was your first concrete memory, I asked him as we continued talking about his childhood. He answered quickly.

My first concrete, emotional, and plastic memory is of a dog’s head larger in size than what we are used to in sculpture these days; a farmer gave it to my father during one of his trips as inspector of schools in the state of Guanajuato. Father had it placed in the small fountain in our yard so that the water came out the dog’s snout. That’s one of my precise memories and, though it might seem strange, I was just a year-and-a-half old. But from then on I was fascinated by pre-Hispanic sculpture.

Violent, rude, and gross as he was, deep down Rivera had the tenderness of a child. He loved little ones and all manner of plants just as he hated the negative aspects of life. I saw him get rid of a man who suggested he soften his political notions with the worst insults, and days later have tears in his eyes before a sick boy.

Children are always there in his work, you can see them everywhere, constituting a leitmotiv in the paintings, even in those whose subject matter doesn’t call for the presence of a delicate being, as in the murals. “We have found,” wrote Xavier Villaurrutia, “in this painter of colossal figures, the ingeniousness and tenderness of infancy.” That same author went on to compare Rivera with a modern St. Christopher protecting the tender figure of a child.