Diego Rivera (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists) was written and illustrated by Mike Venezia. The back cover of the book notes that Venezia is a graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While I may have expected the content to be wanting, I was definitly surprised to be completely uninspired by the layout and art of this book.
The book follows a standard format of illustration, photograph, or cartoon in a square or rectangle shape, without any border or other details segregating graphic from text. The graphics are placed in an elementary manner. Diego Rivera is known for his massive, powerful murals, however, on at least three occasions, much of the art work is lost in a chasm of binding as the graphic spans two adjacent pages; Venezia should have thought of a better way to showcase the murals. There is no timeline or any other aids to develop the content, making for a visual understimulation.
Venezia does add some of his own cartoons, attempting to inject humor into the art world. However, the cartoons do very little to develop or further the reader's understanding of Rivera. For example, the text states that Diego spent "lot of time in the Mexican forest." Adjacent the statement is a cartoon in which a young Diego asks the animals to play hide and seek and they all decline because it is too scary in the forest. This cartoon and the ideas it presents has nothing to do with the theme that the author is trying to develop.
The book contains only thirty-two pages and does not use them wisely. There are six pages without text, and the ones containing text often cover complex issues such as the Mexican Revolution, industrialism, Trotsky, and Frida Rivera in one sentence. While I appreciate the need for efficency, Venezia squanders text through redundency. For example, page one states: "Diego Rivera thought that it was important to make paintings for everyday working people to enjoy." On page eighteen, "Diego worried that his paintings were being enjoyed only by well-educated people who were wealthy enough to buy them for their homes. He thought that art should be enjoyed by everyone-especially poor, working people." And, then on the next page "Usually, these were painted on the walls of the church, so everyone in a town or city could enjoy them. Diego decided he would return to Mexico to make paintings for all the people there to enjoy." The ideas and word choice are so repetitive they defy interest. ( )

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