experimented with many different styles and techniques; such as, oil painting, watercolor, still life, and landscape. During her time as Diego Rivera's star pupil, he described her artwork as "proud yet modest". Izquierdo's portraits are mature studies in interpretation, they are stylistically very feminine and unmistakably Mexican. In 1937, reviews of her work began to use words like "primitive" and to define her work as primitivist, these comments gained certain regional isolationism. Izquierdo painted a significant number of works with religious themes that fall into a category of imagery, about folk Catholicism or popular art or both. Some representations of popular devotion could be interpreted as religious subjects or as homages to the popular and artisan traditions of Mexico, especially rural Mexico. This category, which is often ambiguous in its intent, is exemplified by María Izquierdo's Calvario (Calvary) of 1933. Izquierdo painted most of her images from memory. Her friend the poet Margarita Michelena recalled that they often went to the country together, and Izquierdo dedicated herself to just looking. Izquierdo evoked memory in her paintings in two ways. First, she used formal means to create a sense of time past. Prior to 1940 she employed loose brushstrokes and avoided detail. Throughout her life she created paintings that lack the directional light and cast shadows that would suggest a specific time of day. Second, after 1940 she portrayed traditional aspects of Mexican culture that were known to be vanishing, such as coscomates (granaries) and altars to the Virgin of Sorrows. The tradition of making Viernes de Dolores altars began to vanish in the 1940s. This is precisely the decade in which Izquierdo painted her series of Viernes de Dolores altars. Subject matter Early on, Izquierdo established herself as a painter of still lifes, altars, circus scenes, and portraits of women. Making it a point to tie her art with Mexican popular tradition, Izquierdo pushed back from what many of her peers at the Academy of Fine Arts were doing. Instead of painting political messages, she painted images that held personal meaning and was rooted in Mexican traditions. Images of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the Mexican country side, and Catholic saints were common in her paintings. She saw art as communication to the soul and her frequent images of the circus traced back to her memories visiting the circus with her aunt and grandmother in San Juan