Diego Rivera, a Mexican-born artist, used his murals and frescoes to influence the communication of shared interests and problems in many countries including Mexico and the United States. His cultural background inspired most of his artwork, as seen in his work, Man at the Crossroads, in which Rivera showed North America and the world that humanity as a whole was meant to unite and become greater than God himself. Through his work and connections with other artists, Rivera proved the importance of art as a form of communication and left a lasting effect on the art of today.
Diego Rivera’s artistic prowess can be traced back to his youth. Born in 1886 in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, Diego Rivera came from a humble family. Rivera had a fraternal
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In 1907, Rivera met Gerardo Murillo who helped him achieve a grant to travel to Europe to study. While in Europe, he studied under many famous artists like Picasso, El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. His art began to change from the formal Renaissance style to cubism–a type of abstract art that uses geometric shapes. This transition can clearly be seen in View of Toledo, a piece that greatly resembles his instructor El Greco's painting also named, View of Toledo. His transition to cubist portraits can also be seen in Sailor at Breakfast. Although Rivera heavily relies on his Mexican roots, it is clear that much of his work is influenced by his studies in Europe. During his travels in Belgium, Rivera met and married his first wife, Angelina Beloff. Angelina became pregnant but miscarried. Rivera later had a daughter with Marevna Stebelska, a Russian cubist painter before leaving them behind in Europe and returning to Mexico. He broke off all contact with both women and refused to acknowledge paternity of his daughter. In Mexico, he married Lupe Marin but later separated from her after having an affair with photographer, Tina Modotti. After he briefly visited the Soviet Union to teach painting and mural-making, he returned to Mexico and married now famous Frida