Quiz question for Tuesday:
Using at least five (fully identified) works of
art as examples, write a 20-minute essay
on the most significant art ideas and
objects we have studied since the last quiz
(on Futurism). Show what you have
learned from the assigned readings, 3
videos, and lectures.
The Mexican Mural Movement
Los tres grandes: Diego Rivera,
David Siquieros, José Orozco
Mexican Revolution 1910-1920
Jose Vasconcelos
(1882- 1959)
Álvaro Obregón (1880–1928)
Soldiers
Emiliano Zapata (1887-1919)
Pancho Villa (1877-1923)
Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886-1957) The Architect, 1914
(right) Compare Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians, 1921
Synthetic Cubism
“I recognized and accepted Picasso’s mastery in Cubism from the
beginning. I readily proclaimed myself Picasso’s disciple. I do not
believe it possible fo any painter after Picasso not to have been
influenced by him in some degree.”
- Diego Rivera
My Art, My Life
Diego Rivera, Zapatista Landscape – The Guerilla, 1915
Rivera, Creation, 1922-23, encaustic (used blow torch) & gold leaf,
National Preparatory School, Mexico City.
Courtyard of the Ministry of Education, Mexico City
Rivera at the Education Ministry, Mexico City,
with one of his murals, 1924
Rivera, Wall Street Banquet and Night of the Rich, frescos,
Ministry of Education, Mexico City, 1927-8
Rivera, Liberation of the Peon, 1931, fresco on board, Philadelphia MA
Rivera, (left) with Frida Kahlo, 1930
The Protest 1928, fresco, detail, west wall courtyard
Mexico City Ministry of Education
Compare Rivera, Protest, fresco, Mexico City, 1923 and
Giotto, Mourning of Christ, c. 1305, fresco, Cappella dell'Arena, Padua
"Giotto was a propagandist of the spirit of
Christianity, the weapon of the Franciscan
monks of his time against feudal oppression,
Bruegel [Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter,
C.1525-1569] was a propagandist of the
struggle of the Dutch artisan petty bourgeoisie
against feudal oppression. Every artist who has
been worth anything has been a propagandist. .
. I want to be a propagandist of Communism and
I want to be it in all that I can think, in all that I
can speak, in all that I can write, and in all that I
can paint. I want to use my art as a weapon. . ."
The Revolutionary Spirit in Modern Art, Diego Rivera, 1932
Rivera, May Day Moscow, 1928, watercolor
Rivera, May Day Moscow, 1928, watercolor
Rivera, The History of Cuernavaca and Morelos, fresco, 1929-30, Cortez Palace,
Cuernavaca, Mexico
Rivera, The History of Cuernavaca and Morelos, fresco, detail, 1929-30, Cortez Palace,
Cuernavaca, Mexico
Rivera, Detroit Industry, fresco, 1933, Detroit Institute of Arts, north wall
Detroit Industry south wall
Rivera, Man, Controller of the Universe, fresco, 1934, Originally for Rockefeller Center,
Recreated for the Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City
Rivera, Man, Controller of the Universe, fresco, 1934, objectionable details of Lenin (left)
and Trotsky (right)
L-R André Breton, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky, in Mexico, 1939
Rivera, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, 1931, San Francisco
Art Institute
Rivera, Pan-American Unity: The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and
South of this Continent, City College of San Francisco, 1940
SF City College fresco detail
David Alfaro Siqueiros (Mexican, 1896-1974) at work on Tropical America, Oliveras
Street, Los Angeles, 1932, fresco applied with air gun on cement, 19.7 ft x 98.4 ft
Siqueiros, Tropical America, dedicated October 9, 1932 and whitewashed
less than a year later. Forgotten for years and rediscovered in the late 1960s
when the whitewash began to peel off. First outdoor mural and prototype for
muralism of the 1960s. Getty restoration is stalled.
Siqueiros, Revolutionary on a Horse, 1957 Fresco, Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico
City
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Echo of a Scream, 1937
Duco on wood with applied sections, 48 x 36 NYC MoMA
Jose Clemente Orozco (Mexican, 1883-1949) The Trench, 1926-7 fresco, National
Prep. School, Mexico City
Jose Clemente Orozco, The Franciscan, 1930, lithograph, NYC MoMA
Jose Clemente Orozco, Zapatistas, 1931, 45/55” o/c, NYC MoMA
Jose Clemente Orozco, Prometheus, 1930, tempera on masonite, 61 cm,
Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City. A version of the mural painted the same
year for Pomona College, California
Orozco, Prometheus mural, Pomona College, 1930
Orozco, two panels from Dartmouth College fresco, (left) Ancient Human Sacrifice and
(right) Gods of the Modern World, 1932
Orozco, Hispanoamerica & Angloamerica, panels of American Civilization
fresco panels, 1932-4, Dartmouth College Library, New Hampshire
Quetzalcoatl in human
form, Codex Borbonicus
Orozco, The Expulsion of Quetzalcoatl (detail), American Civilization
Fresco panel, Dartmouth College Library, New Hampshire 1932-4