Diego Rivera’s Flower Vendor
Diego Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter. He was born on December 8, 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico. Rivera was known for being an active member of the communist party and as Frieda Kahlo’s husband.
Professionally speaking, Rivera was a master muralist and composed many great works of art commissioned by excellent members of society, such as the Rockefellers and the Detroit Institute of Arts.
In Mexico during the year 1935 Rivera created a masterpiece, Cargador del Flores, translated to The Flower Vendor. This painting, like much of Rivera’s work appears beautiful and simplistic, but exudes mass amounts of symbolic meaning. This vibrantly colorful painting displays a peasant man struggling to carry the dramatically oversized basket of flowers that is strapped to his back. A woman is shown standing behind him in an attempt to relieve some of his struggle by helping to support some of the weight as he tries to rise to his feet. While the beauty of the flowers is easily visible by the viewer the man does not focus on this factor, but strains to protect their value as he readies him self to carry these flowers to sell and exchange at the market. The geometric shapes give each figure and item a bold and intense contrast, offering an individual aspect to each character and thing factored into Rivera’s The Flower Vendor.
I chose this piece because I immediately found it to be aesthetically pleasing and having done my previous blog on Rivera’s wife, Frieda Kahlo I had a minimal knowledge on Diego Rivera as an artist. I really appreciate the bold and colorful work of Rivera and artistically speaking I am very fond of him. I do have some personal discrepancies regarding the life he led, however, but that’s not what this blog was about!
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Lisa's Voice 
I enjoyed your entry. Rivera was an incredible painter, completely immeshed in political work. Your information was well laid out, great job.
Great Job!
This work of art is very unique and I enjoyed your sharing the bit about the symbolism. I wish that you would have included more about the artists’ life. After you mentioned him being a communist and made the reference about not liking the life that he led, it made me want to know more about him.
It appears that all of your information is factual, you included all of the right information, and cited your sources. Awesome!