It took a direct immersion in the politics of the Mexican Revolution to give Diego Rivera's art the cause and the audience it needed. Commissioned by the new government to execute huge public murals, Rivera created a new socialist iconography from a mixture of Renaissance, academic, Cubist, and indig

Bright, Composed, Muralists, Political, Round, Social realism, Social revolution

Henri Matisse made it look easy, but don't be fooled -- those vibrant, lyrical scenes and simple, geometric portraits which look tossed off the tip of his paintbrush actually took weeks, sometimes months to create. A perfectionist, he once mused, "Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the bran

Bright, Decorative, Domestic, Fauvism, Joyful, Lyrical, Opulent, Pop, Serene