“El Albanil”

By Diego Rivera

1904

The correct interpretation is “the bricklayer”. This I know because my family comes for a long line of Mexican bricklayers. I heard this word, and their terminology in Spanish and English all my life. My grandfather was born in 1880 in Sinaloa, Mexico. My father was born just this side of the border in Nogales, Az. My grandfather was a bricklayer, as was my father and my uncles. My father Angel Fraijo and my uncle Francisco Fraijo built a good portion of the original downtown Tucson, Arizona are. As well as one of the first modern movie theaters called Buena Vista. This building no longer stands but it was there. I fell in love with this painting because this is what my tata (grandfather) must have dressed like for work as well. As he was 24 years old at the time that Diego Rivera painted this painting. In fact my grandfather was a little older than Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera was an academic fine artist. He was talented and gifted, however, he did go for formal training at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City when he was 10 years old. He went to study in Barcelona, Spain when he was about 18 years old. By the time he was 16 years of age he had been exhibited with 26 works of art and became an established painter. Now his work would be taken seriously as a professional painter and not just a young boy with a dream to paint.

His favorite subject, the working class of Mexico. He painted the laborers, pickers, field workers. He seemed to be infatuated with the working class citizen and their life styles. He certainly painted their history, giving them the credit as hard working people. He also felt that everyone should benefit from art the poor as well as the rich. The painting “El Albanil” was one of his first paintings in oil on canvas. Perhaps one of the first four paintings of Rivera’s early time. It came up missing for almost 80 many years until the grandson of the couple that had purchased it in 1930 found it behind an office door. He took it to the Antique Roadshow where it was authenticated and appraised by Colleene Fesko.

Ms. Fesko also commented that the way he signed his signature to the painting was an indication that this was one of the paintings of his youth, as his signature had matured and changed with his more recent paintings. He signed “El Abanil” as a young Diego Rivera. Up to 1995-96 the only research on the painting that was found in Mexico City was that it was unknown. “El Albanil”, was missing from 1930, when it was purchased until it resurfaced at an Antique Roadshow at Corpus Christi in 1995-96. That is where Ms. Fesko authenticated it and appraised it at $800,000 - $1,000,000.

This painting is proportionate to scale. The “Bricklayer” appears very life-like. His face is rugged and sun worn like someone who has spent the better of their lifetime working outdoors. He is wearing the traditional white cotton work pants, sombrero and poncho. These ponchos were thick like a wool blanket and helped to retain heat in the cold weather. The sombrero kept the sun out of the bricklayer’s eyes and directly off his face. He worn traditional huarache sandals that were probably his everyday shoes as well. Life was simply for the Mexican worker. You work and there is food and shelter, you don’t and there is no food or shelter. These people put their lives into their work, from the buildings they built to the dresses they embroidered, and the jewelry they made. Everything is an art to them even the dishes they cooked. It has to look beautiful, smell beautiful and taste like love. Diego Rivera recorded Mexican culture, and history in his paintings. He even painted “La Revolacion” that took place at the beginning of the 20^th century.

This bricklayer was proud to be a worker, look at how his stance is tall and strong. He isn’t slouching or looking down with humility. He is proud and looking straight at his artist. Making sure that he captures the strength, courage, pride and dignity that he puts into the buildings he builds. For that is his signature to his art, his pride and dignity. These people take their name and the essence of that name and what it means to them very seriously. There is no shame in being poor, but there is great shame in being lazy. Diego Rivera didn’t use the bright primary colors he did most of all his later paintings. This one was special, it almost makes me wonder if he didn’t have personal connection to the man he painted. Maybe he knew him? If he didn’t he painted him like he did. In fact this man looks like my father. It is not my father but you would have never guessed it wasn’t if you had seen a picture of my father in his youth.

He uses secondary colors to paint this man, with the exception of “white”. We have shades of blue, red, rose and tans for skin tone, there is black but only for the purpose of shading or creating depth, a 3-D look. Even though this is a 2-D painting it does not have that “flat” look he was famous for in older paintings. By painting the background walls in reverse colors he created space behind the bricklayer. This painting was very different from his traditional 2-D flat paintings that he became so famous for later in his career. Frieda Kahlo, his wife also a famous Mexican painter from the 20^th Century used that “flat” 2-D effect in most her paintings as well. The painting, “El Albanil” has form, shape and there is depth showing the room that descends behind him and around him. Perhaps he is standing in a building that he is working on. The texture of the painting is a little rough, you can see the brushstrokes as they applied the details of the skin, clothes, and the walls around him. His brush strokes in the painting really show his training and skill for the arts he acquired at the Academy of Mexico City.

I cannot help but notice that there is a perfect line in this painting that goes straight up and down. If you line up the bricklayers left foot and leg and go straight up it is in line with his facial features. This gave him perfect posture. He is standing straight up and tall and proud. I am sure that he used this line to scale and proportion the size of the head to the body and balance everything out. That is what makes this painting life-like. It is a perfect example of 20^th century naturalism and realism. This worker is as authentic as it gets. You are looking back 110 years at what the Mexican bricklayer looked like on a daily bases.

He really emphasized this man as not just a worker, not just a laborer, but a bricklayer. He included his tools. The shovel in his hand that he used to dig footings, the pail that he carried bricks in, or even mixed cement to lay the bricks. The only masonry tool that I do not see here is what they called “la Pala”, that means the shovel or the spade. This is a small hand tool, triangular in shape and flat. It is used to scoop up the cement and place it around each brick, as they are laid up to form a wall.

He did put allot of thought into this man and his trade, even the tools he would use on a daily basis. There is no doubt what his trade is.

The bricklayer is highlighted in a bright hue of light blues and white creating a glow around just him. This makes you look at him, study him because “El Albanil” is the subject. This painting drew my attention because this man was very real and very much an icon of Mexico. There is an old song sung by the famous Mariachi singer, Vicente Fernandez, called “El Albanil”. These men come from generation after generation of bricklayers. I know that my family did. I have seen old photos of my great uncles and my grandfather in their youth and they look just like this man. Right down to the mustache and the black hair, the rugged looking facial features, this men built Mexico, one generation picking up where the other left off all the way back to the pyramids. I have seen photos of my Uncles in the Pancho Villa days, having a pint of beer at the cantina with their bullets strapped crisscross on the chest, their pistols on each side of their hips and that sombrero that made Mexico famous, with a sign in the background that read “Mine for Sale”. My father’s sister who now in her eighty’s has this photo in her family collections.

Diego Rivera was born in a small village called Guanajuato, Mexico in 1886 and died in Mexico City, Mexico in 1957 of a heart attack. Today, Guanajuato is still a small village. My brother and his wife married there about 14 years ago. The bride and groom were carried away by cart and donkey. His father built him a studio at the age of 2 in this small village. The family later moved to Mexico City in 1892 and when he turned 10 years of age he started attending the Academy of Mexico City to become an artist. He painted “El Albanil” in 1904 when he was about 18 years old. I was sold in 1930 and rediscovered in 1995-96 at the Antique Roadshow. This painting was literally missing for his entire career. I was archived as “whereabouts unknown”. I always think of Rivera’s art as those 2-D flat looking villages, with workers gathering flowers and working the fields. It was amazing to see that his earlier work was realistic naturalism. Even though he did not go to study the arts in Europe until after he painted “El Albanil” he showed a lot of skill in his brush strokes that only a fine artist would have. If I didn’t know better I would say that his brush strokes remind me a little of the texture that Claude Monet had in his paintings. But as we know Diego was inspired by many great painters like Picasso, Cezanne, Chicharro, Braque, and Derain. He dedicated himself to “cubist” school of art for 5 years, yet these were not the paintings he was famous for. Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco were known as “Los tres Grande’s” meaning the three greats. These three gentlemen were known for setting off the Mexican Renaissance.

They revolutionized Mexican Art at the beginning of the 20^th Century. In all, Diego Rivera was a brilliant genius in his style and talent to record the Mexican workers and poor people on oil and canvas. He painted their world as it was and as it appeared, depicting their art, music, dance, food and religion into the scenery. You can see there is Aztec influence in his art as well. He did study Aztec painting and portraiture. He also had allot of political context in his art. He had so much that when he was commissioned to paint a mural on the wall at the Rockefeller Center in New York, it was torn down before he could finish it due to its communistic detail. He truly captured his people in his era and expressed what being Mexican at the turn of the century was like. I see my own grandparents, Luis and Gregoria Fraijo in these paintings. My grandfather was very much “El Albanil” and my grandmother very much “Delfina Flores”. I believe that the people he painted were people he knew. He brought them to life with such realism because they were real. He was a fine artist of 20^th Century naturalism and realism setting off the Mexican Renaissance. Thank you Mr. Diego Rivera for putting into paintings our culture, our traditions, hardship, our wars, our lives, ourselves. Now we will live forever.