Review: “Flower Festival” by Diego Rivera, Eurographics – 8.75/10
Publisher: Eurographics (Canada), 2016
Title: “Flower Festival” by Diego Rivera 1000 pieces, 19 1/4″ x 26 5/8″
Review by Jane
OUR RATING: 8.75/10
Box Quality: (9/10)
The box is shown above and below. The rectangular box is sized similar to Ravensburger and Jumbo. The artist and image name is prominent on the front.
Back:
The back showcases Eurographic’s “Fine Art Collection” and essentially acts as a mini-catalog. I always like being able to see other puzzles in the line.
The sides:
Two sides have a nice close-up detail from the image, and one long end has a bio of Diego Rivera. I love having an artist bio. I’ve added a close-up of the bio below.
Inside the box:
There’s nothing inside the box except the bag of puzzle pieces.
There is some puzzle dust in the Eurographics puzzles, so take care to open the bag over a surface you can easily clean up (like the vinyl back of a Jigboard cover).
The Image: 10/10
I have loved Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s artwork since I first read about them in a college art class. They were both Mexican painters who met, fell and love, and married. Diego (1886-1957) was considerably older than Frida (1907-1954). They wed when he was 42 and she was 22. They had an epic and tempestuous romance. Both of them created art that showcased a love of Mexican culture. There was a feature film made about them (Frida with Salma Hayek) and you can also find information about them on the web, such as this biography site.
Diego Rivera was quite celebrated in his lifetime. He was best-known for creating enormous murals such as “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon”. His work often celebrated or championed the common worker.
That’s a long lead-in to say–I was very happy to find a Diego Rivera puzzle, and I’ve given this image full marks. This image is “Flower Festival: Feast of Santa Anita”, a painting Rivera created in 1931. The image depicts a flower festival held on Good Friday in a town then called Santa Anita. The painting was included in a solo exhibition of Rivera’s work at MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art in NYC) in 1931.
I love the bright colors and the simple, powerful figures in the composition. The white flowers at the top, and the large section of green stems, create nice large sections of pattern and color to assemble.
Above: The completed puzzle. Click for closer view.
Puzzle Quality: 8/10
You can see our full brand comparison on Eurographics here.
The quality of this puzzle is quite good. As you can see in the detail close-up below, the puzzle is randomly cut with a large variety of piece shapes. The pieces feel thick and the image reproduction is good. The pieces are of average size, not large like White Mountain, but not overly small either. The final puzzle is a modest 19 1/4″ x 26 5/8″. The pieces interlock well and there’s no confusion about where a piece goes. As you can see from the image above of the entire puzzle, you can see the artwork well in the finished piece and it would be suitable for framing.
There is a bit of puzzle dust to deal with and you need to use care when moving groups of assembled pieces or they will come apart.
Assembly: 8/10
This is a medium difficulty puzzle. I did the border first, then the blue pants. The green plant stems are easy to piece together. The color is very distinctive, and there are a strong vertical lines which you can match up.
The whites were the most challenging areas to assemble. There’s a lot of white–the large area of flowers at the top, but also in the man’s robe and the girls’ blouses. Fortunately, the yellow stems in the flowers gives you nice anchoring points for the white at the top.
The red and pink areas are fairly straight forward. There are lots of orangey tans all over. It was fun to discover some of the faces and details I hadn’t noticed in the painting.
Summary
This gorgeous puzzle by Diego Rivera offers the best of two worlds–it’s a fine art image but it also feels contemporary, colorful, and far from fussy or dull. The bright colors and random cut make assembly interesting. It has enough difficulty to appeal to a true puzzler, but isn’t too hard for a family puzzle night. When you’re done, you’ll have an image worthy of framing. Recommended.
Where to find:
You can grab this puzzle on sale for the next three days at Puzzle Warehouse.
Jane
