Title: All You Need to Know About Mexican Muralism and Muralists | Widewalls
Headings: All You Need to Know About Mexican Muralism and Muralists
All You Need to Know About Mexican Muralism and Muralists
June 17, 2016
Mexican Muralism - Hand-in-Hand with Politics and People
Mural - The Characteristics and Significance
Los Tres Grandes - The Three Great Muralists of Mexico
Diego Rivera
José Clemente Orozco
David Alfaro Siqueiros
Video - Most Important Mexican Muralists of the Muralist Arts Movement
The Influence and Legacy
Follow These Artists
Follow These Galleries

Content: Since most of the population was illiterate, an effective way to change that would be through the creation of visual messages that would not only appeal aesthetically, but that would also promote certain ideals. And so, Mexican muralism became a vital part of the country’s new industrialist identity in the making, under the full support of those in charge of it. But despite this kind of groundbreaking endorsement, these murals were very controversial for their time, and they often included elements of Marxism. David Siqueiros - El pueblo a la universidad, la universidad al pueblo, 1952–1956 at National Autonomous University of Mexico
Mural - The Characteristics and Significance
Although the mural movement stretched out all the way through the 1970s, the Mexican muralists produced the most significant paintings in the years between the 1920s and the 1950s. Their work was remarkable in many ways and as such it has brought art to its highest level of purpose and perhaps even aesthetics. Undisputed by the state, and even getting along with it - at least for a while - it was above all public and free, made accessible to the people and not just a few wealthy collectors. These large-scale paintings graced the walls of centuries-old colonial buildings, prestigious schools and national offices, as they depicted indigenous Mexican culture, the fighting and the outcome of the Revolution, the mixed-race mestizo identity and all things related to traditions of Latin America and Mesoamerica. The muralists were completely free in their choice of topic and technique, as they all believed art is the highest form of human expression, and because their murals carried a political message, Mexican muralism became a form of social realism at its finest. The artists, including “los tres grades” Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, portrayed the Aztec warriors battling the Spanish in their fight for the independence, humble peasants fighting in the Revolution, common laborers of Mexico City using fresco, encaustic, mosaic of glass, ceramic and metal, and sculpture-painting. They worked in the country’s urban areas and were prominent political activists overall, dedicated to creating modern Mexico.