Research Paper on Creative Greats: Paulo Coelho & Diego Rivera

Introduction

Creative people all over the world have influenced and continue to influence the lives of people as well as their way of life. It is important to note that creative people get to influence society because they allow other people to escape into the sanctuary of their fantasies; such people also make the world a better place. Two such creative people were Paulo Coelho and Diego Rivera, both of who was a writer and painter respectively. Their greatness and influence on society were based on more than just self-communication and self-expression because it allowed individuals in society to be self-aware and more comfortable with the sharing of their emotions. Artists tend to connect with society through their creative work easily, and this connection makes it easy for them to influence the lives of people who are exposed to such works and, in turn, even those who are not directly exposed. It is evident everywhere, and all one needs is to look keenly and closely.

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Paulo Coelho and Diego Rivera

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist who gained much recognition for his novel The Alchemist, and he is considered one of the most influential modern writers of our time with more than a quarter-million books sold worldwide in different genres and categories. Coelho's expressive writing still impacts the lives of readers even to this day, and he has changed people's outlook on life because most of his writing focuses on the genuine intention of life; hence people easily relate to his novels (Mayer, 2018). Diego Rivera, on the other hand, was a Mexican painter who was a prominent figure in the twentieth century and is remembered for having focused mainly on painting murals. Rivera's work of art is considered to have inspired and continue to inspire so many people all over the world. His work was influenced in a great way by the historical and political events of his time, but his influence can still be felt in our modern society.

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera, as a visual artist, showed his talents at an early age and went on to learn art skills, his unique ideas and expressive nature often got him in trouble later on in his career. Most of the work that this artist composed was aimed at communicating particular messages or tried to express specific emotions to the population. Most of his life decisions were influenced by the politics and history of his time; for example, he was initially a long-time Marxist and has also developed strong ties with the Soviet Union in Russia (O'Sullivan, 2019). All this proved that he was a socially committed artist who took to art to express the ideologies of his political causes.

The culture and history of Diego also went a long way to influence how he expressed his art, and portraying his art using murals was his way of appreciating the large-scale accessibility of his art as well as the fact that murals had a better view compared to portraits. Rivera is widely known as an artist who produced some of the most memorable pieces of artwork because he used art to remind people of the events that had happened in the past. His artwork has significant value and impact on society as well as its population.

Paulo Coelho

As a writer, Paulo Coelho dedicated his life to finding truth in life, and this is the reason why most of his writing focused on philosophical ideas and the genuine intention of life. He is one of the best Brazilian writers of his time, and this is tagged to his capability to show wisdom and rationality in all his work. The writer's most renowned book, The Alchemist, still holds the Guinness world record for being the book with the most sold copies globally. Coelho had genuine love and passion for humanity, and this is seen in how he took his time to travel the world and interact with his audience (Mayer, 2017). Early on in his life, his parents were against his artistic ambitions and wanted him to study engineering; his love for art, however, saw him drop out of law school.

His writing career can be considered as a journey of self-discovery. He had suffered from bouts of anger and depressive tendencies, which had made his parents take him to a mental rehabilitation facility several times before he entered law school. Paulo shifted from becoming a play writer to a lyricist and eventually a novelist. At some point, his art got him into trouble leading to torture and imprisonment. His expressive writing contains messages that resonate with many of his readers worldwide.

Exploration of the Research Question

Paulo Coelho has fought many battles in his personal life from issues of insanity to those dealing with spirituality, but at the same time, he is also one of the most immensely quotable and universally appealing writers of our modern time. He is considered by many a spiritual guru because apart from his writing career, his personal life is an inspiration to many because he was involved in black magic, orgies, and drugs. It is good to note that the influence his writing has on society is attributed to the fact that most of his writing is based on his experiences. His book, the Alchemist, is self-help literature that helps different individuals who feel confused in life to find their way back on the journey to find purpose.

The main theme of the book is following dreams and listening to the heart, and the message is that whatever a person desires will come to pass since the universe conspires to make it a reality. Such a message influence society in a great way because people get to identify with emotions and consider them universally shared, emotions such as fear and the lack of purpose in life. The writer provides hope that, in the end, one can trust their heart to guide them through life (Puspitasari, 2017). Several lessons can be learned from Paulo Coelho's writing, and these include the facts that people should not wait for life to be over to appreciate it. Also, that pain is inevitable, and love is bigger than pleasure; his life also shows that it is never too late to be reborn. The ideas and lessons from the books and the life of Coelho influence society by changing the point of view of individuals towards life hence aims to make the society and the individuals making up the society better in all areas. The writer helps people grow psychologically so that their physical manifestation of their mental state becomes beneficial to them.

Diego Rivera also had a profound influence on his society, and most importantly, he had a massive effect on the international art world, and he has been credited with reintroducing the fresco painting into modern architecture and art. Firstly, his radical political views helped create political awareness during his lifetime, and through his artwork, people got to see different perspectives of politics and life. He was mainly concerned with the history and future of humanity, especially the effects of technological progress. Through his art, he reminded people of their past to enable the society to shape a better future for itself, his desire to help people understand progress was rooted in the growing industrial societies of his time (Carter, 2019). The trod of capitalism, and the fragile political system contributed to the struggle of workers, and through his art, Rivera managed to open the eyes of the workers on various injustices, and this got him in trouble with some of the rich elites who benefited from capitalism.

To this day, the original painting style of Rivera, as well as the force of his ideas, remain major influences not only on American painting but also on society, especially politics. His art had mostly depicted the possibilities of the twentieth century in terms of politics, science, and society, among other things (Rivera, 2017). He believed that if people could understand their past, they would be able to do things differently for the betterment of the whole society, and even though he faced opposition, his ideas managed to improve the lives of so many people who got inspired to desire better for themselves. The major contribution that allowed him to influence perceptions was his ability to combine some of the most radical strategies with indigenous themes so as to create contemporary public art that easily related to society.

Conclusion

These two people used different forms of art to communicate their ideas and emotions, but ultimately they changed society forever, and most importantly, they made society better than they originally found them. Their art and lives are not forgotten, and even future generations will benefit from their contributions; it is one of the reasons why art lives on forever even long after the creative artists are gone. Navigating through life has no blueprint, and this can make life challenging, artists such as the two mentioned above contributed in their own different ways to help members of the society grow and benefit from life. It is for this reason that they are remembered because they not only left marks on society and history but also on the lives of individual people who get exposed to their works of art.

References

Carter, W. (2019). The Slow Fuse of the Revolutionary Mural: Diego Rivera, Historical Revisionism, and Poststructuralism. Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, 94, In-Press.

Mayer, C. H. (2017). The life and creative works of Paulo Coelho. A Psychobiography from a Positive Psychology Perspective. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318440572_The_Life_and_Creative_Works_of_Paulo_Coelho_A_Psychobiography_from_a_Positive_Psychology_Perspective

Mayer, C. H., & Maree, D. (2018). The magical life and creative works of Paulo Coelho: A psychobiographical investigation. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 18(sup1), 1-16.

O'Sullivan, L. (2019). Diego Rivera and Juan O'Gorman: Post-Revolutionary Architectural Anatomies. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 1-23.

Puspitasari, F. B., Titis Setyabudi, S. S., & Hum, M. (2017). The Motivation To Chase A Dream Of Main Character In The Novel The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho (1988): Individual Psychology Analysis (Doctoral dissertation, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta).

Rivera, D. (2017). The revolution in painting. In Man in Adaptation (pp. 451-452). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780203786598/chapters/10.4324/9780203786598-41