

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR, COLORADO
This painting, dated on the back by the artist in the month of September, 1918, is a magnificent example of the aesthetic and conceptual transformations that Diego Rivera underwent during these critical years. This painting depicts a landscape of the Parisian suburb of Arcueil where the painter fled to during the war, fleeing from the German artillery attacks over Paris. He was hosted in the house of his friend, the Danish sculptor Adam Fisher, and this context would prove conducive for him to concentrate on his study of Cézanne's innovations, and create new work in reaction to them. Beyond focusing his attention on the anecdotal aspects of the landscape, Rivera concentrates his glance on the structure of every element that composes it, distancing himself from naturalism and observing like a vanguard painter. His diaphanous brushstrokes in varied distinct shades of greens are sufficient to construct the series of trees above the street Dr. Durand in Arcueil; the soft russet strokes bring forth a fence in perspective, and the touches of red and sienna outline the roofs of the surrounding large houses. In this way, the landscape reveals itself to the eyes of an attentive viewer in a much more dynamic way. Following the convex lines that form the branches of the trees, one soon notices the existence of two vortices that, on each side of the composition, reveal the existence of a pictorial dimension of centrifugal forces that Rivera associated with a fourth dimension.
Professor Luis-Martín Lozano
Art Historian