Muralists
Origins and Inspirations
Art for a purpose
“Art and politics are
inextricably connected”
- Diego Rivera
In a place long, long ago...
One of the greatest civilizations of humankind
developed in the tropical forests and central
highlands of what is now Mexico and Central
America. These people are still collectively known
as the Maya.
While many of their cultural achievements where
destroyed by both the conquering Europeans and
the relentless tropical climate of the Lacandon
jungle, one major artistic master piece still remains
with us today in a site called Bonampak in the state
of Chiapas.
Topography of MesoAmerica
Archaeology divides the landscape into
lowlands and highlands.
Origins
• Teotihuacan – American’s first true city!
Teotihuacan AD 1 - 800
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Streets and avenues are laid out in grids with religious centers, workshops, palaces for elite
and suburbs.
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Architecture made up of pyramids (temple platforms – not necessarily burial chambers),
housing complexes,
dance and a dance plaza (Ciudadella).
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Covers 20 square kilometers, the population is estimated at 125,000.
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No one could have constructed a total site such as this without already being a “complex
society” with class structure. Anthropology identifies 4 different political-social organizations
created by people around the world. Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States.
– Bands and tribes are small scale societies where social equality is still present.
Chiefdoms and states begin to differentiate groups of people based on their inheritance
and the type of work they perform.
Teotihuacan was more like a “city-state” where it had elite rulers and priests, a complex
belief system that we are just beginning to understand, specialized arts and crafts families,
Architectural construction and engineering, and accurate astronomical calendars.
System of writing – through symbolic images.
Long distance trade in obsidian – archaeologists think Teotihuacan had a large share of
obsidian resources that they traded with other groups of people in many parts of what is now
Mexico and possibly into Belize.
Avenue of the Dead
• Temple platforms and
temples along the Avenue
of the Dead.
Temple of the Jaguar (Puma?)
is one example of the minor
Temples constructed along the
avenue. Pumas in cages are
found buried with warriors.
Teotihuacan had a “symbolic
landscape” which is represented
by the Avenue of the Dead.
• The grid of streets is skewed
15.5 degrees east of north
which aligns it with Canis
Major – or
• Sirius (Egyptian “Dog Star”)
rises at Winter Solstice and
cross street west is aligned
with the Pleiades (in Nahuatl
“Tzab” or the rattle of a
rattlesnake).
Pyramid of the Sun and Moon
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Pyramid of the Sun
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Constructed in 5 stages
Original construction is placed
over a natural cave. Interpreted
as being the gateway into the
underworld.
Pyramid of the Moon
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Temple complex focused on
military power of
Teotihuacan - evidenced by
obsidian weapons and burials of
elite individuals who were
outsiders.
Pyramid of the Sun
Temple of Tlaloc
• Rain
Water
Storms
Note the
snakes
entwined
around the
edge of
the fresco.
Note:
-earspools
-puma face
w/fangs!
-ocean shells
falling from his
hands.
-quetzal
feathers
Pyramid of
Quetzalcoatl
• Burials around the temples
indicate a strong relationship
between the military and
prestige at Teotihuacan. Around
AD 400 façade of the pyramid
was smashed and reconstructed
(what we see here) and
indicates a greater emphasis on
ancestral lineages.
• Indicated here by the
combination of Tlaloc and
Feathered Serpent motifs on the
new façade and stairway.
Teotihuacan writing
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Concepts of Flower Mountain portrayed through ideographs.
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Recently developed by Karl Taube (UC Riverside 2000)
Taube connects images at Teotihuacan through records inscribed in Mayan and Toltec
sites.
Flower Mountain is an umbrella concept or world view expressed by glyphs and
graphic images.
They contain concepts of beauty and paradise.
The symbolism is connected through song, dance, procession, and performance.
Boundaries – illustrated by rings of flowers or floating flowers
Odor – incense Singing – Quiche Maya still have processions through villages with
incense and singing.
Death - Concept of the Underworld from which everything is reborn again.
In the Underworld people are represented with syymbols representing ephemeral
aspects of life
Soul = dancing jaguar
Yk spirit = dreams or Id
Cholem = soul essence represented as breath – a curlique issuing from mouths of
speakers. Also represented as a serpent or flower.
Idea of breath becomes expanded from the breath of one person to all ideas related to
moving air – wind –motif for wind = music = wind through rattles.
Influences -Teotihuacan
frescos
Tepantitla mural
Tlalocan mural
Mural from the Palace of
Tepantitla
Room 1 at Bonampak
Three – tiered celebration
going on.
Bottom tier
Procession includes
people of all stations and
sea creatures as well. An ear of
corn is carried on a pillow.
Middle tier
Nobility identified by their
jewelry and garments.
They are all facing Chaan Muam
who seems to be presenting his
heir apparent. Overseeing this is
the Lord of Yaxchilan.
Top tier
Represents deities in the
heavens.
Murals dated ca. AD 775 or later.
Procession of river dwellers along with people blowing
horns. Caiman (A), crayfish (B), carp (C)Ear of corn (D)
B
D
C
A
Jade pendents, spondylus shells, headresses and portraits
give an honest expression of the assemblage of power. The
blank cartouches were meant to identify each noble. They were
never completed.
Room 2 Chaan Muan adorned with the warrior’s
jaguar pelt outfit symbolically holds his enemy’s hair
as a sign of defeat.
Room 2 Chaan Muan with defeated soldiers who have already been
ritually mutilated and wait further judgment.
Bonampak
The scene depicts a trial of conquest with victor placing judgment over
the pleading vanquished. While these murals do little to the promote the
myth of indigenous respect and harmony, (Indigenismo), they convey
very powerful messages about Maya society.
Room 3
Women’s bloodletting rituals.
Karl Taube thinks
nobility had obligations
to carry out these
religious acts as
intermediaries between
the gods above and
humans below.
This may also show a
rite of passage for a
new initiate.
Aztec
Tenochititlan Map drawn by
Spanish witnesses
• Description of seeing it for the first time
More than a few centuries
later..,
After a conquest, three hundreds of colonialism, a
lengthy eleven year war for independence,
rebellions, three foreign invasions and
interventions, more rebellions, a caste war, even
more rebellions, a costly defeat that resulted in the
lost of more than half of its northern territory, and
a war for Reform; and yet another foreign
invasion; a revolution broke out in 1910 which
ushers a return to murals as a major expression of
Mexican art.
National Cathedral, Mexico City
The red bricks making up some of the walls are red volcanic bricks taken
from Aztec temples and pyramids after Cortez took over Tenochititlan.
Politics of Europe
Post revolution Mexico look at Marxism
and Socialism as an ideal:
Anti-capitalism
Marx:
Art of a purpose
Lenin:
Glorify who we are
Socialist Realism - the Party’s art
Socialist Realism - Soviet positivism
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The Socialist Realists, in painting about socialist life, are usually
optimistic.
The style was a conservative, figurative and narrative one, meant to be
accessible to all viewers, and never to deviate from the Party line.
Socialist Realism - Maoist positivism
These posters were produced during the People’s Republic of China
period known as the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976.
Themes:
School children devoting themselves to the teachings of Mao.
Man on the front of a Train Museum,.
A Moa slogan “Forcefully aiding agriculture.
Man driving a tractor holds up a copy of Mao's Red Book,
above a Mao quote: "Continuous revolution always going
forward,"
Mexican Muralists
The three giants
Inspiration of Chicano Muralists
Mexican Muralists
The three most famous Mexican muralists, known as “Los
Tres Grandes” (The Three Great Ones), were Diego Rivera,
José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
El Porfiriato – 1876 -1910
Under the dictatorship Porfirio
Diaz, Mexican art took an
significant turn towards
rediscovering the elements of the
country’s mestizo heritage.
Although Diaz attempted
reshaped Mexican society after
both U.S. and European models,
intellectuals sought to create a
“uniquely” Mexican image.
JOSE GUADALUPE POSADA
Posada, Newspapers
Geraldo Murillo – Dr. Atl
Geraldo Murillo – Dr. Atl
Saturnino Herrán (1887-1918)
Saturnino Herrán (1887-1918)
, 1909
La cosecha
Saturnino Herrán (1887-1918)
DIOS DE LOS INDIOS 1914
Saturnino Herrán (1887-1918)
DIOS DE LOS INDIOS 1914
Diego Rivera was the
best known of the
three not only for his
artist genius but also
his tumultuous
marriage to the
equally famous artist,
Frida Kahlo
(pictured here together).
The People’s Demand for better health
Rivera was the first artist to visually make the connection between the people
of Mexico and their Indian heritages. Before Rivera the mention of Indian cultures
was considered intolerable.
Rivera’s murals used a collage-like discontinuous space
which juxtaposed elements of different sizes
Mexican Socialist Realism
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Mussolini. 1933. Painted by Diego
Rivera at the New Workers School in
New York. Fresco 1.83 x 1.52 m.
Mexican Socialist Realism
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Modern Industry. New York, New
Workers School (1933). Painted by
Diego Rivera. Fresco 1.83 x 1.80 m.
In his 1928 mural, Night of
the Rich, Rivera depicts three
giants of capitalism, John D.
Rockefeller, Henry Ford and
J.P. Morgan, greedily
scrutinizing a tickertape while
at champaign dinner. Their
table is lit by a Statue of
Liberty lamp, but beneath their
chairs are the severed hand of
a worker, reaching for a
machine switch, and a deposit
box for their money.
Jose Clemente Orozco employed sweeping, nonnaturalistic brushwork, distorted forms,and exaggerated
light and dark (those elements clearly depicted in his work Zapatisas,
Mexican Social Realism
Mexican Landscape. 1930. Painted by José Clemente Orozco. Lithograph, 47.3 x 34.9 cm.
The Flag. 1928. Painted by José Clemente Orozco. Lithograph, 47.3 x 34.9 cm.
David Alvaro Siqueiros added expressive uses of
perspective with extreme foreshortening that made forms
burst out of the walls. (Self-portrait)
Mexican Social Realism
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A type of realism which is
more overtly political in
content, critical of society,
marked by its realistic
depiction of social problems
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Angústia(A Mãe do Artista). Painted
by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Vinilete
sobre eucatex, 94 x 76 cm.
Mexican Social Realism
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Echo of a Scream. 1937. Painted by
David Alfaro Siqueiros. Enamel on
wood, 121.9 x 91.4 cm.
Mexican Socialist Realism
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Workman. 1936. Painted by David
Alfaro Siqueiros. lithograph.
Perhaps the most influential work on what would be known
as Chicano mural art movement produced by the great
three was Siqueiros’ La America Tropical.
The commissioned mural was to be a pastoral scene of Latin
America’s tropical flora. The mural was to overlook
Olivera Street’s old placita area, the birthplace of the pueblo of
Nuestra Señora de los Angeles. What Siqueiros created was
unexpected.
Similar to those art projects sponsored by WPA, the mural was to be
a means to bring Americans together during the throws of the Great
Depression. Siqueiros, however; expressed the reality of the period.
While he painted over 250,000 of his fellow Mexicans were deported
from Los Angeles. The racism and reality blended together to convey
a very different message.
At the center of the work was a bounded and crucified
Mexican peon with the talons of the American bald eagle,
symbolic of capitalism, holding up the instrument of
torture, a cross.
Shortly after completing the work Siqueiros was deported back to Mexico ,
the mural was to be covered by white wash, (in the above photo a quarter
was painted over).
It would take over sixty years before any effort was made to restore the
mural. The total restoration is to be complete by Spring of 2007.
Since there did not exist a color reference of the original work,
this contemporary artist’s rendition provides a glimpse as to the
vividness and scope of the mural (19 x 92) .
Polyform Cultural, Mexico City, Portraits of Artists of the Mexican
Revolution whose work gave following generations inspiration.
The Chicano Muralist Movement
While the Mexican muralist movement was
sponsored by a successful revolutionary
government, the Chicano murals came from a
struggle by the people against the status quo.
Instead of well-funded projects in government
buildings, these new mural were located in
the barrios and ghettos of the inner cities,
where oppressed people lived.
Both movements, however; were similar in
the sense that they served as an inspiration
for struggle, a way to reclaiming a cultural
heritage, and as a means of developing selfpride.
First mural by Chicanos
In the spring of 1968 Mario Castillo, a Chicano art student from
California, organized a team of local artists to created a mural. His
inspiration were pre-Columbian frescos of the Maya and
Teotihuacano civilizations and the three major Mexican muralists,
Los Tres Grandes, Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros.
Peace or Metafisica
Painted in 1968 and first anti-Viet Nam war mural,
"Peace"or Metafisica, at the Halsted Urban Progress
Center on Halsted Street and Cullerton in the Pilsen
neighborhood of Chicago..
Considered the first Chicano mural, The Del Rey Mural, was painted by
Antonio Bernal in 1968 outside of the Teatro Campesino Cultural Center
in Del Rey, California. Inspired by the murals of Bonampak, the scene
depicts “La Adelita”, a revolutionary woman soldier, followed by Franisco
“Pancho” Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Joaquin Murieta, Cesar Chavez, Reies
Lopez Tijerina, a Black Panther, and Martin Luther King Jr.
The Last Supper
Burciaga’s mural, Zapata Hall dining room, Stanford University,
depicting thirteen historic personalities identified by Chicano
students as heroic figures
The Chicano Muralists - Judith Baca
Starting in 1969 with a grant
from the city of Los Angeles,
Judith Baca’s The Great Wall of
Los Angeles engaged hundreds
of culturally and economically
diverse 14-21 year olds,
including gang members, as well
as scholars, oral historians,
artists, and community
members. Baca calls the
depiction of America and
California’s ethnic history “the
largest monument to interracial
harmony in America.”
Chicano/a artists
• According to Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Chicano/a art has taken on three issues
that are important
– Rasquachismo (protest and resistance)
– Alter-Nativity (border issues)
– Native Eye/I (self identity – hegemony of
gender, class, status issues)
Victor Ochoa, Border Mez-teet-zo