l overheard two painters at an art gallery. One said to the other: ''l paint what l see, said Diego.'' What did she mean?

it means tht he paints wat he sees
its not tht hard 2 figure out?

Its like things you imagine in your head, like if for some reason one day you cant stop thinking about some strange picture in your head, you will just kinda paint it and see what comes out.
As in '' l paint what l see.''

Diego Rivera was a Mexican painter who lived from 1886 to 1957. A movie about his life was made in 1992, entitled ' l Paint What l See', & in the 2002 movie 'Frida' (about the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo), Rivera says '' l paint what l see around me, but u paint with ur heart''. l would guess that Rivera meant that he considered himself a realist, but check out some of his art (http://images.google.com/images?q=Diego%20Rivera&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi) & u wo not think so.

Many paintings can have abstract looks to them, such as cubist paintings.

But some paintings have more of a realistic look to them, and Diego was just saying, it was only what he saw that he painted. For example, if someone said ''Oh Diego! Your painting is gorgeous!'' He might have replied, '' l paint what l see.'' He could've meant that he was not the one to create such beauty, but he just in sense took a picture of it.

Well, we can conclude that his eyesight is pretty screwed up.

All artists visualize within their minds and then put the image of the mind down on canvas. That is what he meant.

Jeff (weseye) Wesley

This will explain exactly what he meant when he made this commit to a reporter:

Diego Rivera was an artist who was very passionate & outspoken about his political, social & religious views & beliefs. By the time he made this statement a large percentage of his paintings were reflecting the political & social climate of his time & had become controversial.

What he meant was that he was recording what was going on around him in the world, from exploiting poor farm workers to the rise of Hitler to power, etc. What he told the reporter was that he painted what was going on in the world.

What he meant when he mentioned his wife Frida is paintings where that her is were very personal landscapes that had to do with what was going on inside her head.

(FYI: Diego often admitted that Frida was a far better artist than he considered himself. His fame as an artist came about as much as because of some of the political controversy they created as because of his talents as an artist. Frida was a far more accomplished painter who is skills were overshadowed by his fame & the controversy that followed them around.)

EDIT: Six thumbs down for recounting exactly what Diego had told the reporter & for keeping my reply actually fact checked! Wow! l suppose facts r not that important.

Artist is see things differently than non artist's. An artist sees beauty where others may see nothing at all. When an artist looks at ur face, it is not to decide if there is beauty. All faces r beautiful to an artist. As they study ur face they notice the position of ur features & the shadows cast by ur features, the color of ur skin, the set of ur ears, & the emotion in ur eyes & mouth. Wrinkled skin, no problem, it is looked at as wonderful detail. And thus, the artist views the environment the same way. You may walk by a rusty old car & look at it as refuse, but the artist see is beauty in the aging & imagines where the car has been & with whom. A fallen tree, dead foliage, the creatures of the air, & land, r viewed with a new enthusiasm . So when Diego say is he paints what he see's, he is viewing it through a different lens, an artist eye.

Naturalism, or realism