About this work
Painted in oil on canvas and measuring 117 by 72 cm, *Sailor at Breakfast* presents a Cubist figure of a sailor mid-meal, his form broken into geometric shapes and fragmented planes.
Rivera's geometrized sailor — in the process of taking a drink at a wood-grain café table — wears a prominent cap with an oversized crimson pompom, emblazoned with the word *patrie* (homeland).
The hat sits at the top of the composition, relatively by itself, and is given a commanding prominence; along with the striped shirt found further down, it is the primary key to the figure's identity.
The intricate interplay of lines and forms constructs the sailor's face and body, merging multiple perspectives, while the meal — a plate with two fish and a beverage — is rendered with the same geometric abstraction and flattened spatial planes.
Some objects are seen from above, others head-on, a deliberate collision of viewpoints that is central to Cubism's challenge to conventional perspective.
The background is subtly textured with muted earthy tones, offering minimal distraction from the predominantly monochromatic foreground.
At the beginning of 1914, Rivera met the Spanish Cubist Juan Gris in Paris, and the influence of Synthetic Cubism is especially evident in *Sailor at Breakfast* through the "grid" method of composition that Gris had evolved.
That same spring, Picasso sent a mutual friend to Rivera's studio with the message that if Rivera didn't come to visit him, Picasso would come himself — and a painting that may have been directly inspired by those studio visits is *Sailor at Breakfast*, which recalls a Cubist Picasso of a similarly mustachioed figure.
Like many Cubist works executed on the eve of World War I, *Sailor at Breakfast* reflects the rising tide of French nationalism — the word *patrie* on the cap is no decorative accident. Works like this one sit near the end of Rivera's purely Cubist period; by 1916 he was already moving away from the style, redirecting his focus toward political events such as the Mexican and Russian Revolutions.
The original painting is held at the Museo Casa Diego Rivera in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Cubist works characteristically favor understated tones, and *Sailor at Breakfast* is no exception — which makes it a striking counterpoint to the vivid, saturated palette Rivera is otherwise celebrated for. That restraint gives the print a quiet authority. It suits interiors that favor
