Title: The History of Mexico: Diego Rivera’s Murals at the National Palace – Smarthistory
Headings: The History of Mexico
: Diego Rivera’s Murals at the National Palace

The History of Mexico: Diego Rivera’s Murals at the National Palace
How is history told?
A new national identity
Why murals?
The North Wall
The West Wall
The South Wall
An alternative history
Notes:
Additional resources:

Content: Although this mural cycle spans hundreds of years of Mexican history, Rivera concentrated on themes that highlight a Marxist interpretation of history as driven by class conflict as well as the struggle of the Mexican people against foreign invaders and the resilience of Indigenous cultures. Diego Rivera, “Mexico Today and Tomorrow,” detail featuring Karl Marx, History of Mexico murals, 1935, fresco, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City (photo: Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 3.0)
A new national identity
In the immediate years following the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), the newly formed government sought to establish a national identity that eschewed Eurocentrism (an emphasis on European culture) and instead heralded the Amerindian. The result was that Indigenous culture was elevated in the national discourse. After hundreds of years of colonial rule and the Eurocentric dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, the new Mexican state integrated its national identity with the concept of indigenismo, an ideology that lauded Mexico’s past Indigenous history and cultural heritage (rather than acknowledging the ongoing struggles of contemporary Indigenous people and incorporating them into the new state governance). José Vasconcelos, the new government’s Minister of Public Education, conceived of a collaboration between the government and artists. The result were state-sponsored murals such as those at the National Palace in Mexico City. Why murals? Rivera and other artists believed easel painting to be “aristocratic,” since for centuries this kind of art had been the purview of the elite. Instead they favored mural painting since it could present subjects on a large scale to a wide public audience.