Diego Rivera's The Hammock Or La Hammaca

Diego Rivera’s The Hammock or La hamaca, is a portrait that was painted in 1956 of Dolores Olmedo’s daughter, along with a friend of hers. The two are supposed to be studying, hence the fallen book by), but instead they rest in a hammock in front of the mesmerizing landscape of Acapulco. This artwork is very appealing to the eye due to the vibrant colors and many other factors. You will find that when looking at the Visual Elements of Art and Principles of Design, Rivera accurately uses line, color, emphasis, balance/symmetry, proportion/scale, and multiple focal points in The Hammock. The lines featured in this painting include regular, diagonal, horizontal, curved, outlines, and contour lines. Directional lines are often used in order to focus the viewer’s eye to a specific section of the artwork, which is what Rivera does with the lines of the hammock in his painting. The downwards curving …show more content…
A complementary color scheme is used, taking colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel. In The Hammock, the complementary colors red, blue, and yellow are primarily used. While both warm and cool colors are used in this piece, the predominant colors are warm (Ex: the girls’ tanned skin and bright yellow and pink clothing), and accent colors are cool (Ex: the blue and green in the landscape of Acapulco). The overall warmth and high saturation of the dominant colors give an uplifting and cheerful vibe to the painting while the cool accent colors create a sense of peace and calmness. Local color presents features or aspects of the natural appearance of things, and is what’s used in this particular piece. Chiaroscuro is the use of light (highlights) and dark (shadows) to create the illusion of volume and mass in an artwork. The Chiaroscuro used throughout The Hammock is clearly visible on the girls, which is what allows them to appear as three-dimensional