Mexican muralism: 5 keys to understand its importance

Mexican muralism is a pictorial movement that had its origin just after the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and that acquired a truly transcendent importance. It is one of the first pictorial movements in Latin America in the 20th century to commit deliberately to break the Europeanizing aesthetic and to legitimize the Latin American aesthetic in search of a "authenticity".

The origin and formation of the movement takes place in the 1920s, which coincides with the end of the First World War and the period of the Great Depression. Its heyday lasted until the 1960s and impacted other Latin American countries. But even today, the flame of Mexican muralism remains alive.

The intellectuals who belonged to this movement sought to vindicate Latin America, and particularly Mexico, in two senses: one aesthetic and the other socio-political. To understand Mexican muralism, it is necessary to take into account some keys:

1. A committed artistic movement

Mexican muralism was a politically committed art movement. This is due to two factors: first, the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and, second, the influence of Marxist ideas.

The dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz came to an end after the Mexican Revolution, promoted by Francisco "Pancho" Villa and Emiliano Zapata, among others. That supposed a new environment of social expectations that demanded for the recognition of the rights of the popular sectors, in the name of a renewed nationalism.

Although the revolution did not have its inspiration in Marxism, some intellectuals, and among them the muralists, linked the two discourses once the ideas of the international left spread through the world. Thus, they began to embrace this "new" ideology and to interpret the role of art from it.

For artists influenced by Marxist ideas, art was a reflection of society, and therefore should be an expression of commitment to the cause of the oppressed classes (workers and peasants). Thus, art became an instrument at the service of the ideals of revolution and social vindication within the framework of the class struggle.

If the history of Mexico awakened in the muralists the need to seek national identity, Marxism inspired them to understand art as a resource for ideological propaganda and the visibility of the struggle of lessons.

Such was their commitment that the muralists created the Revolutionary Union of Technical and Plastic Workers and an outreach body of the union, called The Machete, which would end up being the magazine of the Mexican Communist Party.

2. Claiming the public function of art

At the beginning of the 20th century, art trends were dictated from Paris and the best artists in the world went to study there, including Latin Americans. But since the nineteenth century the conditions of art production had changed, and the great patronages paled, decreasing the commissions of public mural works. Most of the artists had to take refuge in the canvas, easier to commercialize. This is how painting began to lose influence in public affairs.

The increasingly free environment of the first wave of vanguards and the weight of revolutionary political ideas were a breeding ground for Mexican artists to initiate an artistic revolt within their society.

In Mexico the change began to form as of 1913 when Alfredo Ramos Martínez was appointed director of the National School of Plastic Arts and introduced important reforms. His work was deepened by the painter Gerardo Murillo, known as Dr. Atl, who wanted to overcome the European canons in Mexican art.

When in 1921 José Vasconcelos, author of the book The cosmic race, he was appointed Secretary of Public Education, made the mural spaces of public buildings available to artists to transmit a revolutionary message to the population. Thus, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros would be the first.

In the gaze of these artists an interest was reflected: to find an authentically Mexican art that would reach the masses and that would transmit a new horizon of ideas and values. In this way, an awareness of what was authentically Latin American was also built. That art had to be public, for the people and by the people. Therefore, the ideal support would be the wall, the only truly "democratic" artistic support, truly public.

See also:

• Jose Clemente Orozco.
• Mexican muralism: characteristics, authors and works.

3. A unique style in search of national identity

Mexican muralists considered artistic acadecimism something "bourgeois." This academicism insisted on a Eurocentric look at religious, mythological or historical scenes, as well as portraits and landscapes. These conventions unleashed the creative momentum of the artists who drove the avant-garde.

The avant-gardes opened the way to artistic freedom by claiming the importance of plastic language over content. The muralists allowed themselves to be impregnated by those forms and that freedom, but they could not renounce the content transcendent, only they added an approach that had hardly been addressed in social realism: the struggle of lessons.

A set of characteristics defined Mexican muralism. In addition to demarcating their own style, they demarcated a programmatic agenda, and showed social problems that had been ignored. Thus, through art, the muralists took up and reclaimed indigenous aesthetics and culture and national themes.

Thus, they in turn inspired artists from Latin American countries to join the cause of an art committed to history and that give voice to the construction and vindication of a Latin American identity, in confrontation with the supposedly universalizing model of Europe.

See also The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz.

4. An uncollectable artistic heritage

The wall as a support for art as well as artistic installations are a problem for the market. These types of works cannot be commercialized because they are not "collectibles". But one thing distinguishes them: the wall is permanent and the installations are ephemeral. And that difference underscores the goal achieved by the muralists: to restore painting to its public character.

The fact that the wall has been the support of Mexican muralism allows that the developed heritage cannot be withdrawn from its social function. Regardless of the fact that some of these murals have been made inside public buildings, they are still part of the public heritage, and those that are in open spaces or of daily use, such as schools or universities, among others, are still within the reach of those who frequent said places.

Thus, Mexican muralism leaves an invaluable legacy through the works of its artists. Some of the most emblematic were Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco. They were also joined by the artists Gerardo Murillo (Dr. Atl), Rufino Tamayo, Roberto Montenegro, Federico Cantú, Juan O'Gorman, Pablo O'Higgins and Ernesto Ríos Rocha.

See also: Mural The Man Controller of the Universe, by Diego Rivera

5. A controversial move

Being an art with a marked political spirit, Mexican muralism has generated much controversy. One of them would have to do with the true effectiveness of the wall as a public support. Indeed, for some critics it was an inconsistency that these walls were in public buildings where the peasants did not arrive.

Likewise, they considered that the PRI government acted hypocritically by promoting an art that exalted the values ​​of the Mexican revolution, after having eliminated Zapara and Pancho Villa from the scene politics. For these critics, more political than artistic, Mexican muralism was another hiding place for the dominant bourgeoisie.

In addition to Mexican muralism, other plastic movements in Latin America were inspired by social denunciation and the representation of local customs and color. To this must be added the movements that wanted to penetrate or question the Eurocentric schemes of artistic valuation, such as the Modernist Movement of Brazil with its Manifesto Manifesto (Oswald de Andrade, 1924). This was crucial for the projection of Latin American culture at the time, thus marking a presence on the international scene.

However, these types of aesthetics based on the search for "Latin American identity" have been used by the Western world as stereotypes. Indeed, in an article by the Chilean researcher Carmen Hernández, published by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), these stereotypes have oscillated between the "exoticization" and the "sociologization" of art Latin American. That is, either Latin America is "exotic / picturesque" or it is "social denunciation."

In any case, beyond the content represented and the controversy that these unleash, it is beyond any doubt that Mexican muralism was capable of creating an aesthetic with its own authority, valuable in itself, and that has become a point of reference in the history of painting, both Mexican and international.

Seen like this, it is easy to understand why Rockefeller hired Diego Rivera to paint a mural and why he also had it erased when he discovered in the middle of the composition the face of Lenin.

It may interest you: David Alrafo Siqueiros: biography and works of the Mexican muralist.