Title: Mexican Muralism Movement Overview | TheArtStory
Headings: Mexican Muralism
Mexican Muralism
Mexican Muralism
"The artist must paint as he would speak. I don't want people to speculate what I mean, I want them to understand."
Summary of Mexican Muralism
Key Ideas & Accomplishments
Overview of Mexican Muralism
Key Artists
José Clemente Orozco
Do Not Miss
Important Art and Artists of Mexican Muralism
The Creation (1922)
Los Danzantes de Chalma (1922)
The Banquet of the Rich (1923-24)
Useful Resources on Mexican Muralism
Books
scholarly/biographical
Share
Do more

Content: It was a new music, waiting for the composer with genius enough to give it communicable form." 11 of 11
Summary of Mexican Muralism
Originally spawned by the need to promote pride and nationalism in a country rebuilding after revolution, the Mexican Muralist movement brought mural painting back from its staid retirement in the history of ancient peoples as a respected artistic form with a strong social potential. With it, a rich visual language emerged in public spaces as a means to make art accessible to all. It provided an opportunity to educate and inform the common man with its messages of cultural identity, politics, oppression, resistance, progress, and other important issues of the time. It was a fiercely independent movement; many of its early artists rejecting external influences and used this new, vast, and freeing medium to achieve personal expression. This movement proved that art could be a valid communication tool outside the confines of the gallery and museum. Key Ideas & Accomplishments
Murals were originally used as a way to spread visual messages to an illiterate population, which opened up new possibilities in the inclusion and cohesiveness of community within a people. Oftentimes these messages promoted pride in cultural identity, rich historical traditions, or political propaganda. The potential in murals bypassed more traditional forms of advertising and pamphlet printing.