Diego Rivera and Manabu Ikeda

Diego Rivera was born in 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico. He was the son of Maria de Pilar Barrientos and Diego Rivera Acosta. He was a Mexican artist of the twentieth century whose style was influenced by many things such as his father’s work as a government official, symbolism, cubism, impressionist and others. He brought the mural art form back into the interest of the public eye of his Mexican people. He was known as the father of the Mexican mural movement and of modern political art. During his life he did some travels of which during he was inspired by the Mexican and Russian revolution. He made art that reflected the politics of his people as well as the lives of the working class and natives of the people of Mexico.

He was a communist and that affected some of his work. Also he was married four times, known to be unfaithful, and he had a habit of exaggerating his life or past. He told his past as adventures and almost fairy tale like recreations. Some things about his past are questionable, for instance, his participation in the early battles of the Mexican revolution and his involvement in a textile workers strike. Some famous murals of his are Man at the Crossroad, which was ordered to be destroyed because it was controversial. It had an image of Lenin and a Soviet Russian May Day parade. Two others were Thelmadatter and the city of Tenochtitlan which depicts life in Tenochtitlan. He died in on November 24 in 1957 in Mexico City from a heart attack.

Rivera, Diego. Man at the Crossroad. 1934. Rockefeller Center, New York.  

PBS.org. Mural. 30 September 2013.

Rivera, Diego. Thelmadatter. N.d the national palace, Mexico City. 

Squidoo.com. Mural. 30 September 2013.

Rivera, Diego. The city of Tenochtitlan. N.d the national palace, Mexico City. 

Wikipedia.org. mural. 30 September 2013. 

 Manabu Ikeda was born in 1973 in Saga, Japan. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Design and a Master’s degree from the Tokyo national university of fine arts. His uses very large blank paper canvases. With the paper spread before him he uses his pens and acrylic ink to start drawing. However because his canvases are so large he works with increments of four inch squares at a time instead of the whole canvas. Due to his method his work consists of many pen strokes. His work is unpredictable until the end because of his one-square-at-a-time method. Even so his artwork takes time, patience, and imagination. He can spend hours a days working on his art and sometimes some might take years to complete. His art has many different elements and pictures that all come to him from his imagination. He incorporates Japanese architecture with almost fantasy like scenarios or animals. He is influenced a lot by the natural world, and as he says here "The shape, color, and expression of nature… water, bugs, trees and weather, all those provide me with heart pumping sensations and questions,". Some of his works include Drifter, Lighthouse, and Regeneration. For more information you can visit about past and present exhibitions you can visit http://mizuma-art.co.jp/artist/0030/index_e.php

Manabu, Ikeda. Drifter. 2011. Private Collection. Huffingtonpost.com. 

Pen, acrylic ink on paper. 30 September 2013.

 Manabu, Ikeda. Lighthouse. 2009. Private Collection. Mizuma-art.jp.co. 

Pen, acrylic ink on paper. 30 September 2013.

Manabu, Ikeda. Regeneration. 2001. Private Collection. Huffingtonpost.com. 

Pen, acrylic ink on paper. 30 September 2013

The art of these two artists is very different in theme, medium, topic, etc. Where Manabu’s work is very detailed, Rivera’s doesn't contain the same type of detail. Also the reputation of both artists in regards to their art differs. Additionally where Rivera made art based on the real life of the Mexican people, manabu’s work contains real life issues but it’s disguised within his imagination and his fairy tale like creations. In manabu’s work there are many elements to see and one has to spend some time looking at all of it where Rivera’s doesn't have as many elements to concentrate on but is just as eye catching. Both of these artists however did and, in the case of Manabu, do their work on a big scale.