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DIEGO RIVERA -- MY ART, MY LIFE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (WITH GLADYS MARCH) |
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CANCER IN 1952 I began to be bothered by pain in the penis, the swelling of that organ, and the retention of urine. After making the usual tests, my physician diagnosed my illness as cancer of the penis. He advised amputating my penis and testicles to prevent the spread of the malignancy. I objected to this horrifying proposal and asked the doctor to try to arrest the cancer with X-ray therapy instead. "If you cannot," I said, "I want everything to remain as it is. I will be completely responsible. I refuse to allow the amputation of those organs which have given me the finest pleasure I know." My doctor acceded to the request, and I underwent X-ray treatments. After a few months my symptoms disappeared. The doctor then performed a biopsy, which showed the malignancy to have been arrested. Reports of my rapid and amazing recovery were made known to medical groups all over the world. Cancer of the penis is so rare in this hemisphere as to evoke much curiosity. One of the foremost radiologists of the United States flew to Mexico just to study my case. After this frightening experience, I altered my diet in order to keep my body in the best of condition. Bearing in mind my doctor's maxim that, for every two pounds of weight I lost, I would live another year, I cut down on fats and starches and proportionally increased my intake of proteins. For the next few years my lunch, my main meal, consisted of two eggs, meat, two slices of black bread, yogurt, a cooked dessert, six different fruits, and a tall thermos of unsweetened black coffee. This was packed for me at home in a laborer's lunchbox which I carried with me onto the scaffold, eating when one of my helpers reminded me it was mealtime. While I was undergoing treatment, I passed through a deep personal depression, dominated by the feeling that my life was practically over. It happened that during this time I was working on a wall of the new Hospital de la Raza. My subject was the history of medicine in Mexico. On the left side of the mural, I painted a giant, phallic, yellow-green Tree of Life. Suddenly I was stopped by a painful idea flashing through my mind. Gazing wistfully at my creation, I thought, "No more for me. Physical love exists for me no longer. I am an old man, too old and too sick to enjoy that wonderful ecstasy." As my health returned I became restless. I yearned to go back to Europe and paint there again. It seemed to me that despite all the work I had been doing in the past few years, I had been asleep and not even dreaming. In 1946 I had passed up a second invitation to paint in Italy, extended by the administration of Alcide de Gasperi. Now I decided to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the Vienna World Peace Conference to travel on the continent which had been my second home. Accompanied by my younger daughter Ruth, I left Mexico for Austria in January of 1953, planning to stop on the way back in Chile, where another peace conference was scheduled some weeks later. Vienna, it seemed to me, had not yet shaken off the effects of the recent war. The despair of the people, which I observed during the conference, was reflected in the incomplete restoration of the city. Vienna was like a gravely wounded man who has experienced everything, and in the recesses of his heart, yearns only for order and peace. When the conference was over I made a short junket to Czechoslovakia. Here, by contrast, I observed a remarkable recovery from the war. It was as if I were in another world. I was surprised and delighted. The people were happy and busy, and their activity showed a deep and positive sense of purpose. As I wandered through the towns and cities, I came upon murals noteworthy not only for their technical maturity but for the enjoyment and enthusiasm for life they expressed. Even the industrial murals had a deeply poetic quality. When I got back to Mexico, I felt renewed again. The trip had admirably served its purpose as a tonic. Sometime in the future I would like to commemorate it in a painting of the Vienna World Peace Conference from sketches which I made at the time -- a mural if possible, but if not, a large canvas, depicting the final session as I remember it.
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