Diego Rivera: Painting and Partisanship

Abstract

In using key texts of Marx and Engels against all dogmatic schools of Marxism, Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez accomplished a major theoretical shift by revalidating ‘modern art’ from within the Marxist tradition, so that ‘socialist pluralism’, and not any single doctrine of ‘social realism’, seemed most consistent with the vantage point of Marx. Sánchez Vázquez wrote significant art criticism about the murals of Diego Rivera in which he deftly applied his concept of non-normative Marxism. Remaining focused on Rivera, in this article Sánchez Vázquez concentrates on the characteristics and deliberates the roles of political art. The author examines how and why Rivera's artwork is political in nature and cites a diverse range of evidence to make his point. Sánchez Vázquez also evaluates the aesthetic quality of Rivera's work and makes connections between the Mexican artist and Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya, Eugène Delacroix and Honoré Daumier.