Retrato de Lupe Marin

On Tuesday morning, I went to visit my favorite piece of art in Mexico: “Retrato de Lupe Marin,” by Diego Rivera, painted in 1938.

I’ve been describing the painting to my friends ever since I got here, talking passionately about it to anyone who will listen: “It’s huge; about ten by six feet. It’s Diego’s Rivera’s first wife, Lupe Marin, and it was painted after their divorce, after he left her for Frida Kahlo. You’re looking up at her, with a forced perspective, and she looks even more imposing. She has a neon green pallor, and she’s painted in such a way that… you can tell Diego Rivera both loved her and desired her, and hated her intensely; hated that he loved her.”

It made a big impression on me the last time I saw it—probably in 2006, when I was here for one of the first piercing seminars put on by the APP. My life has changed a lot in that time.

When I was at the museum, I almost walked past it. It’s much smaller than the painting I told people it was: the Internet lists it as 171.3 x 122.3 cm  (about six by four feet). The green color of her skin is there, but definitely not as garish as I remember, and she didn’t look like the monster that I’ve been describing to my friends.

I stood in front of the painting and studied it; I stared at it for probably a half an hour. I stared at her hands, her feet, her reflection in the mirror behind her. But mostly, I looked at her face.

Her mouth had the sexual sneer I remembered—the lips painted red and open, with a wanton, teeth-exposing part to her lips—but there was something else there too… a kind of pained grimace. I kept looking at her eyes: why are her eyes so ill defined when everything else is so vibrant? They look clouded, or like… she’s crying.

She wasn’t the detestable ex-wife of last trip’s painting; she’s a woman deserving of sympathy; the sympathy for someone who loves you, but who’s no longer gets your love in return. She’s a monument; a beautiful woman who he could no longer show the love, the affection she deserved. You can look at the painting and hear her say, “Diego, ¿por qué no me haces hermosa? Why can’t you make me beautiful? It’s shows Lupe’s painful longing—for Diego?