Movement:
• Mexican social realist painter, better known for his large murals in fresco .
• Painted frescos on walls to draw attention to the everyday conditions who try to convey a message of social or political comments
Historical context:
• brought art to his political work and both art and politics blended well together
• He also worked with Diego Rivera, a muralist and leftist, and Javier Guerrero, to start El
Machete, the weekly paper that became the official mouthpiece for the country's
Communist Party.
• His murals there told the story of America's forceful relationship with Latin America
Importance in art history :
• In 1910 the Mexican Revolution erupted and he became involved in student strikes.
• At the age of 18 Siqueiros joined the Mexican Revolution Army
• Joined the Communist Party
• Spent many years of his life in prison because of his revolutionary ideas and political connections
Influence:
• Michelangelo: his work contains the powerful, foreshortened figures characteristic of
Michelangelo and the bold perspective of baroque art all through his career
• love for modern age; therefore he began to incorporate machinery, science and technology into his art
Characteristics:
• expressionist/vivid use of colour
• themes from scenes of everyday
life and images of ancient Mexican
• surging lines
Exterior, Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros, 1974
• cultural, political and social facility located in Mexico City
• the building is covered inside and out with mammoth murals of acrylic paint on asbestos-cement panels and sculpted steel
• its main feature is a gigantic floor, wall and ceiling mural which is called The March of Humanity on Earth and
Toward the Cosmos
• presented with vivid colours and surging lines
• gigantic outdoor gallery

Echo of a Scream, 1937
• It shows a child who is crying because his future is uncertain due to the instability of his home country
•shows chaos, social revolution and war
• depicts the distress, despair, and destruction of war
• internal suffering of the innocent victims of the Revolution
• It also shows swirls of smoke, which can be symbolized of the hopes of the people which are floating away because there is no way that they will come true under the current rank of their environment
• theme of silences because there is lack of hope
The New Democracy, 1944
• shows a woman who is trying to shatter the bonds of oppression
• She is shown carrying a torch of freedom to symbolize the new order
• exaggerates with expressive emotion, similar to
Diego Rivera

Work Cited
Brommer, Gerald F. Discovering Art History. Third ed. Worcester, Massachusetts: Davis
Publications, Inc., 1997. Print.
Mason, Kate. "David Alfaro Siqueiros 1896-1974." Art as a Mean for Social Revolution: The Socially
Conscious Art of Mexican Revolutionary Murals.
Ed. Web. 07 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.wfu.edu/history/StudentWork/fysprojects/kmason/DvASiq.htm>.
Mataev, Olga. "David Alfaro Siqueiros." Olga's Gallery , Ed. 1999. Web. 07 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.abcgallery.com/S/siqueiros/siqueiros.html>.
"David Alfaro Siqueiros." Bio . A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 07 Oct. 2014.