Mexican muralism

Mural by Diego Rivera showing the pre-columbian Aztec city of Tenochtitlán. In the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City.

Mexican muralism is a Mexican art movement that primarily took place from the 1920s and 1930s.[1] The muralists work can be described as predominantly a social realist style, however the artists also did not refrain from including influences from the contemporary European Avant-garde movements (Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Postimpressionism, Surrealism and neoclassicism), as well as mural Italian renaissance mural technique.[1] The proponents of the style, namely the Minister of Education José Vasconcelos, did not stipulate the subject matter or formal elements of the style, however most of the muralists explored nationalistic subject matter, drawing on Mexico's pre-columbian culture, the Mexican people and their heroes.[1]

Similarly to the goals of Social Realism in Europe, especially Socialist Realism, the Mexican muralists sought a didactic style that would be sufficient to communicate the ideals of the new Alvaro Obregón government.[1]

The principal artists in the muralist movement where Diego Rivera, José Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Influences

Precursors to the Mexican Muralism included Francisco Goitía (1882-1960), Saturnino Herrán (1887-1918), José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) and Gerardo Murillo Cornado (1875-1964).

Early in the century Goitía and Herrán were developing a Mexican style, depicting, often tragic, scenes of the indigenous population and events in Mexican history.[1] Posada, a newspaper illustrator and engraver, produced satirical prints and harsh propagandistic images, influencing on many of the future muralists.[1] Notably the newspaper print represent a genuinely populist medium. Corando, also known as Dr. Atl, a teacher at the Academy of San Carlos, was a strong proponent of anticolonialism and furthermore a strong national identity through a nationalistic style, incorporating the "spiritual" qualities of Italian Renaissance fresco.[1]

Beginnings

The movement emerged from the end of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). It was an agrarian revolution. Peasants, intellectuals and artists were pitted against landowners and foreign industrialists represented by the Porfirio Diaz government. The civil war ended with the inauguration of president Obregón, a former revolutionary leader. Vasconcelos initiated the governments mural program, making him, in a direct sense, the founder of the movement.[1]

The movement emerged officially in 1921, launched by Vasconcelos. Two manifestos, written in 1921 and 1924, devellope the issues that would predominate the movements character.

About the movement

The early post-revolutionary period found many Mexican artists looking to indigenous traditions and subject matter for inspiration. A number of like-minded artists in Mexico turned to their own history and artistic heritage, namely Mexico's pre-Columbian cultures and indigenous peoples, contributing to a renaissance of Mexican painting. The 1920s were the height of the muralist effort in Mexico, a movement which marked the high point of Mexican influence throughout Latin America and the United States.

Even though Mexican muralism is considered an artistic movement, it can also be considered a social and political movement. This style was thought of as a teaching method and it was expressed in public places where all people could have access to it regardless of race and social class. Muralists worked over a concrete surface or on the façade of a building. The themes involved events from the political climate of the time and as a reaction to the Mexican Revolution.

Beginning in the 1920s and continuing to mid century, artists were commissioned by the local government to cover the walls of official institutions such as Mexico’s schools, ministerial buildings, churches and museums. Murals from this movement can be found on the majority of the public buildings in Mexico City and throughout other cities in Mexico, such as Guadalajara, that played important roles in Mexico’s history.

The movement's influence subsequently spread throughout North America, acting as the primary inspiration for the Works Progress Administration's art movement of 1940s America, which sought to employ artists through government patronage. Leading artist Diego Rivera in fact was commissioned by private investors such as Ford Motor Company in Detroit and Rockefeller in New York City. During his stay in the US, several WPA muralists assisted and studied under him, learning the techniques needed for modern fresco painting.

Artists and artworks

Felix candela en Casino

Riviera, Orozco and Siqueiros each worked in the United States at some point in their artistic careers. Rivera and Orozco utilized the classical tradition of fresco painting, while Siqueiros preferred using innovative materials such as pyroxylin. All three saw mural painting as a means of social protest with an obvious appeal to the left wing, a dominant force in American cultural life throughout the Depression decade.

As their nickname would suggest – los tres grandes ("the three great ones") – these three are usually grouped together, when in fact their individual styles and temperaments were very different from each other and they worked throughout overlapping but various periods. Siqueiros for example worked well into the 1970s.

Besides fresco and pyroxylin, artists in the movement used encaustic and acrylic painting.

Exponents

Presencia de América Latina by Jorge González Camarena (1964-65).

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Foster, et al. "1933," in Art Since 1900 (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 255.

Bibliography