Caveat lectori The world Rivera described for Wolfe, his friend and confident, was one of a creative artist—a world where “dreams . . . [were] as real as the world around him.” With this preliminary warning, the author proceeds to relate the life, and perhaps an occasional tall tale, of one of the most creative and controversial personages of the twentieth century. He does this with dedication to his personal friend and an equally appreciative sympathy for Rivera’s choice of a great nation and people as the theme of his murals. Combining the above with a superb literary style and beautifully reproduced photographs of paintings representative of the various periods of Rivera’s work, Wolfe produces a lively, readable, and informative portrayal of a great man.
Rivera’s early life was dominated by a painful search for a meaningful medium and motif; his middle years began with their discovery, followed by a period of fanatical productivity; his last years were dedicated to the defense of his life’s work. His genius inspired a mural renaissance and established a national art form which he utilized to reveal the long betrayal of his people and to suggest the idealism and promise of the Revolution.
The major significance of Rivera’s career, according to Wolfe, lies in his discovery of a Mexican art form devoid of noticeable foreign inspiration; it lies in his uplifting, through art, of a people deprived for centuries of their cultural heritage and dignity. Wolfe’s conclusion is that in Rivera’s work may be seen the “tenderness of the vision of a painter who loved his country and his people.”
