Avant-Garde Experimentation

Internationally engaged, many Mexican artists went to study in France and Europe in the early 20th century at a moment of intense artistic innovation. These artists developed a new visual language that came to define Modernism in Mexico. Diego Rivera lived in France and Spain from 1907 until 1920 and witnessed first-hand the beginnings of cubism, dadaism and abstraction. His 1913 painting San Martin Bridge depicts the bridge that links the city of Toledo in Spain to the surrounding countryside. By its focus on shapes and forms, it illustrates Rivera's interest in and knowledge of cubist techniques as well as the landscape painting of Cézanne.