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: Diego Rivera, “From the Conquest to 1930,” History of Mexico murals, 1929–30, fresco, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City (photo: drkgk)
Given the breadth of the wall space, Rivera had to make critical decisions about which historical figures and narratives to include. Rivera’s formal choices—the flattening of the pictorial space, the nonlinear organization, and the monumental scale of the figures—create a non-hierarchical composition. These formal choices support Rivera’s decision to represent not just the historically well-known and recognizable figures, such as the independence fighter Miguel Hidalgo, revolutionary Emiliano Zapata (who holds a flag with the words tierra y libertad, or land and liberty), or the first Indigenous president Benito Juárez, but also anonymous workers, laborers, and soldiers. As Rivera later noted,
“Each personage in the mural was dialectically connected with his neighbors, in accordance with his role in history. Nothing was solitary; nothing was irrelevant.” [ 3]
The artist’s portrayal of the interconnection of social struggle throughout Mexico’s history and the non-hierarchical representation of the historical figures reflects his Marxist perspective. South wall: Diego Rivera, “Mexico Today and Tomorrow,” History of Mexico murals, 1935, fresco, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City (photo: