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DIEGO RIVERA -- MY ART, MY LIFE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (WITH GLADYS MARCH) |
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IN ITALY
Clinic of Dr. Jean Louis Faure. 1920. Pencil and graphite on brown paper, 8-1/2 x 10-3/4" (20.6 x 27.3 cm). Courtesy Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art, New York My ITALIAN TRAVELS took me from Milan southward to Florence, Rome, Naples, and Pompeii; and then north ward, along the Adriatic coast, through Venice. I spent a year and a half in Italy, from January, 1920 to July, 1921. My stay in Italy did not begin well. No sooner had I arrived than I wanted to leave. Among other things I could not bear the Italian habit of spitting everywhere -- in the street, in ships. in hotels, in restaurants. Everybody spat, including the loveliest and most refined ladies. I remember a banquet at which I met the cream of Italian society, where the most conspicuous objects were gleaming brass cuspidors. But I soon learned to make allowance for this revolting custom. There was so much to see in Italy -- the marvelous treasures of Michelangelo and Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, and Antonello da Messina. I could not bear to go to bed. While traveling in trains, I went third class, slept through the trip, and in that way saved time as well as money. To this day, I can sleep in trains and automobiles and wake up as refreshed as if I had been cradled in a soft hotel bed. During my seventeen months in Italy, I completed more than three hundred sketches from the frescoes of the masters and from life. Many of the latter depicted street clashes between socialists and fascists which occurred before my eyes. I often sketched while bullets whistled around my ears.
Portrait of Jean Cocteau. 1918. Pencil, 18-1/8 x 11-3/4" (46 x 30 cm). Carlton Lake Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin When I had reached the point where I thought I could apply what I had learned about mural painting, the question arose, In what country should I begin? I had had enough of France. My friend David Sternberg, the Soviet People's Commissar of the Fine Arts, had invited me to Russia. I was tempted to go. But the call of my country was stronger than ever. And a turn in the political situation seemed to favor my prospects. The landlord dictator, Venustiano Carranza, had been overthrown by the peasants and workers who supported Alvaro Obregon. An artist with my revolutionary point of view could now find a place in Mexico -- a place in which to work and grow. Good-bye, Europe. Good-bye, Italy. Good-bye, France, Goodbye, Spain. For a second time, the exile was coming home.
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