Microbiology, Public Health and the Murals of Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera, an acclaimed Mexican painter active during the first half of the twentieth century, painted multiple frescoes in Mexico and the United States. Some include depictions of bacteria, their interactions with human hosts, and processes related to microbiology and public health including the microbial origin of life, diagnosis of infection, vaccine production and immunization. Microbiological subjects in Rivera's murals at the Mexican Ministry of Health in Mexico City; the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit; Rockefeller Center, New York/Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Chapultepec Park, Mexico City; and the Institute of Social Security, Mexico City, span almost 25 years, from 1929 to 1953. Illustrating the successes of the application of microbiological discoveries and methods to public health and the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, they benefited from Rivera's creativity in melding microbiology's unique technological and scientific aspects and public health elements with industrial and political components.

Diego Rivera, the history of medicine in Mexico: peopled demand for better health, mural in 1953 still current / Diego Rivera: la historia de la medicina en México: el pueblo en demanda de salud, mural de 1953 aún vigente

Abstract: Although public health and social medicine have a long history in Latin America going back to Co lonial times, their relevance has ebbed and flowed as a result of the development of a variety of social and political movements. The Mexican Revolution accelerated implementation of public health po licies in Mexico and resulted in the creation of the Mexican Institute of Social Security to serve the health and social security needs of the country's population. Construction of the Hospital La Raza and its embellishment by the mural paintings of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros correspon ded to the heyday of public health ideas in Mexico. This is clearly reflected in Rivera's mural painting from 1953, The History of Medicine in Mexico: People's Demand for Better Health. The left side of the painting, representing the history of modern medicine in Mexico, exemplifies the tensions between individuals and social groups demanding the fruits of modern medicine and public health, and en trenched bureaucracy and private interests resisting their demands. Rivera's artistry illustrates this tension by depicting urban social groups and a family with a pregnant mother and children reques ting medical attention on one side of the main panel, facing condescending physicians, bureaucrats and upper society gentlemen and ladies on the other side. The importance of social movements to the development of public health policies illustrated by Rivera in 1953 continues to be relevant in Latin America today where increasing millions still lack the benefits of health care and social security.

Frida Kahlo e Diego Rivera: paixão e dor / Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: passion and pain

Algumas ligações amorosas nos intrigam pela tenacidade em se manter apesar da grande intensidade de frustração e sofrimento que acarretam ao sujeito. A pergunta que surge é: o que determina a escolha insistente para objeto de amor de um parceiro que não corresponde ao afeto nele depositado? Este trabalho procura examinar a relação tumultuada de Frida Kahlo com seu marido Diego Rivera, que tomava um lugar central na vida da pintora e se caracterizava por experiências repetidas de dor. Ela sentia que ele representava “mais que sua própria pele”, como se esperasse reproduzir através da ligação com ele o sentimento de fusão inicial que um bebê estabelece com sua mãe nos primórdios de sua vida. O que se repetia, no entanto, era o fracasso em construir um elo primitivo suficientemente bom, que lhe faltou na sua relação inicial com a mãe. A tenacidade com que ela mantinha a ligação com Diego podia estar baseada em uma tentativa de dominar a situação traumática, ou ainda em uma forma de manutenção do elo com a “mãe morta”, a mãe ausente e deprimida. Por meio da pintura e de seus autorretratos, Frida Kahlo podia ser “mãe de si mesma”, e encontrava um canal criativo para lidar com suas emoções e sua dor.(AU)

Some liaisons intrigue us for their tenacity to remain, despite the great intensity of frustration and suffering they cause to the person. The question that arises is: what determines the persistent choice of a love partner that doesn´t correspond to the affection the partner gives? This work examines the tumultuous relationship between Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera, who was the central Frida’s life, that was characterized by repeated experiences of pain. Frida felt that Diego represented “more than her own skin,” as if she expected to reproduce through the link with him the initial fusion feeling established by the baby in his early life. What was repeated, however, was the failure to build a good enough primitive link, that lacked in Frida’s initial relationship with her mother. The tenacity with which Frida kept the connection with Diego seemed to be based on an attempt to master the traumatic situation, or in a way of maintaining the link with the “dead mother” who is seen as the absent and depressed mother. Through the paintings and her self-portraits, Frida Kahlo was a “mother of herself” and found a creative way to deal with her emotions and her pain.(AU)