Mexican muralism refers to the art project initially funded by the Mexican government in the immediate wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) to depict visions of Mexico's past, present, and future, transforming the walls of many public buildings into didactic scenes designed to reshape Mexicans' understanding of the nation's history. The murals, large artworks painted onto the walls themselves had social, political, and historical messages. Beginning in the 1920s, the muralist project was headed by a group of artists known as "The Big Three" or "The Three Greats". This group was composed of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Although not as prominent as the Big Three, women also created murals in Mexico. From the 1920s to the 1970s, murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were created in many public settings such as chapels, schools, government buildings, and much more. The popularity of the Mexican muralist project started a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico; a tradition that has had a significant impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States, where it served as inspiration for the Chicano art movement.
Background
Mexico has had a tradition of painting murals, starting with the Olmec civilization in the pre Hispanic period and into the colonial period, with murals mostly painted to evangelize and reinforce Christian doctrine. The modern mural tradition has its roots in the 19th century, with this use of political and social themes. The first Mexican mural painter to use philosophical themes in his work was Juan Cordero in the mid-19th century. Although he did mostly work with religious themes such as the cupola of the Santa Teresa Church and other churches, he painted a secular mural at the request of Gabino Barreda at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (since disappeared).
The latter 19th century was dominated politically by the Porfirio Díaz regime. This government was the first to push for the cultural development of the country, supporting the Academy of San Carlos and sending promising artists abroad to study. However, this effort left out indigenous culture and people, with the aim of making Mexico like Europe. Gerardo Murillo, also known as Dr. Atl, is considered to be the first modern Mexican muralist with the idea that Mexican art should reflect Mexican life. Academy training and the government had only promoted imitations of European art. Atl and other early muralists pressured the Diaz government to allow them to paint on building walls to escape this formalism. Atl also organized an independent exhibition of native Mexican artists promoting many indigenous and national themes along with color schemes that would later appear in mural painting. The first modern Mexican mural, painted by Atl, was a series of female nudes using "Atlcolor", a substance Atl invented himself, very shortly before the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Another influence on the young artists of the late Porfirian period was the graphic work of José Guadalupe Posada, who mocked European styles and created cartoons with social and political criticism. Critiquing the political policies of the Díaz dictatorship through art was popularized by Posada. Posada influenced muralists to embrace and continue criticizing the Díaz dictatorship in their works. The muralists also embraced the characters and satire present in Posada's works.Meade, Teresa A. (2016) History of Modern Latin America: 1800 to the Present. Wiley-Blackwell, p. 188.
The Mexican Revolution itself was the culmination of political and social opposition to Porfirio Díaz policies. One important oppositional group was an intellectual community that included Antonio Curo, Alfonso Reyes and José Vasconcelos. They promoted a populist philosophy that coincided with the social and political criticism of Atl and Posada and influenced the next generation of painters such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
These ideas gained power as a result of the Mexican Revolution, which overthrew the Díaz regime in less than a year. However, there was nearly a decade of fighting among the various factions vying for power. Governments changed frequently with a number of assassinations, including that of Francisco I. Madero who initiated the struggle. It ended in the early 1920s with one-party rule in the hands of the Álvaro Obregón faction, which became the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). During the Revolution, Atl supported the Carranza faction and promoted the work of Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros, who would later be the founders of the muralism movement. Through the war and until 1921, Atl continued to paint murals among other activities including teaching the Mexico's next generation of artists and muralists.
Mural movement
In 1921, after the end of the military phase of the Revolution, General Alvaro Obregón rose to power. In the aftermath of the Revolution, Mexico had entered a transition from an "oligarchic" state to a "modernizing" state, one that favored urbanization and the bourgeoisie citizens of society. As the country underwent this reformation, General Obregón realized that the reconstruction of a post-revolution Mexico would require a comprehensive alteration of symbols associated with Mexican identity on both cultural and political grounds.
Shortly after the wars end, Obregón appointed José Vasconcelos to act as the Secretaría de Educación Pública, or Minister of Public Education. In his efforts to help raise a sense of nationalism and promote the inclusion of the masses in political and social ideologies, it was Vasconcelos' idea to have a government-backed mural project. His time as secretary was short but it set how muralism would develop. His image was painted on a tempera mural in 1921 by Roberto Montenegro, but this was short lived. His successor at the Secretaría de Educación Pública ordered it painted out.
Parallel to the utilization of murals during the pre-Hispanic and the colonial period, the murals were not to simply satisfy aesthetic purposes, but to promote certain social ideals in the Mexican people. These ideals or principles were to glorify the Mexican Revolution and the identity of Mexico as a mestizo nation. This placed great emphasis on the pride associated with the indigenous culture of Mexico. The government began to hire the country's best artists to paint murals, calling some of them home from their time in Europe, including Diego Rivera. These initial muralists included Dr. Atl, Ramón Alva de la Canal, Federico Cantú and others but the main three artists that spearheaded the muralist project were David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. These three artists, commonly known as "Los Tres Grandes", claimed to act as both the "'voice and vote' of the Mexican national consciousness," calling themselves "guardians of the national soul". The muralists differed in style and temperament, but all believed that art was for the education and betterment of the people. This was behind their acceptance of these commissions as well as their creation of the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors.
The first government sponsored mural project was on the three levels of interior walls of the old Jesuit institution Colegio San Ildefonso, at that time used for the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria. Most of the murals in the Escuela National Preparatoria, or National Preparatory School, were done by José Clemente Orozco with themes of a mestizo Mexico, the ideas of renovation, and the reality of the Revolution's violence. Also at the National Preparatory School, Fernando Leal painted Los Danzantes de Chalma (Dancers of Chalma) no earlier than 1922. Opposite that mural, Jean Charlot painted La conquista de Tenochtitlán (Conquest of Tenochtitlan) by Jean Charlot—invited by Leal. Rivera also contributed his first-ever government-backed mural to the National Preparatory School in 1922 called Creation, functioning as an allegorical depiction of the holy trinity representing love, hope, and faith. The movement was strongest from the 1920s to the 1950s, which corresponded to the country's transformation from a mostly rural and mostly illiterate society to an industrialized one. While today, Murals are seen as symbols of Mexican identity, at the time they were controversial, especially those with socialist messages plastered on centuries-old colonial buildings. One of the basic underpinnings of the nascence of a post revolutionary Mexican art was that it should be public, available to the citizenry and above all not the province of a few wealthy collectors. The great societal upheaval made the concept possible as well as a lack of relatively wealthy middle class to support the arts. On this, the painters and the government agreed. One other point of agreement was that artists should have complete freedom of expression. This would lead to another element added to the murals over their development.
In addition to the original ideas of a reconstructed Mexico and the elevation of Mexico's indigenous and rural identity, many of the muralists, including the three main painters, also included elements of Marxism, especially in trying to frame the struggle of the working class against oppression. This struggle, which had been going on since the sixteenth century, along with class, culture, and race conflicts were interpreted by muralists.Meade, Teresa A. (2016). History of Modern Latin America: 1800 to the Present. Wiley-Blackwell, p. 15, 188.
The inception and early years of Mexico's muralist movement are often considered the most ideologically pure and untainted by contradictions between socialist ideals and government manipulation. This initial phase is referred to as the "heroic" phase while the period after 1930 is the "statist" phase with the transition to the latter phase caused by José Vasconcelos's resignation in 1924. Scholar Mary Coffey describes those who "acknowledge a change but refrain from judgment about its consequences" as taking the soft line and those who see all murals after 1930 as "propaganda for a corrupt state" as taking a hard line. Another stance is that the evolution of Mexican muralism as having an uncomplicated relationship with the government and as an accurate reflection of avant-garde and proletariat sentiments. However, hard liners see the movement as complicit in the corrupt government's power consolidation under the guise of a socialist regime.
Art historian Leonard Folgarait has a slightly different view. He marks 1940 as the end of the post-revolutionary period in Mexico as well as the renaissance era of the muralist movement. The conclusion of the Lázaro Cárdenas administration (1934 – 1940) and the beginning of the Manuel Avila Camacho (1940 – 1946) administration saw the rise of an ultraconservative Mexico. The country's policy was aimed at maintaining and strengthening a capitalist society. Mural artists like the Big Three spent the post-revolutionary period developing their work based on the promises of a better future, and with the advent of conservatism they lost their subject and their voice.
The Mexican government began to distance itself from mural projects and mural production became relatively privatized. This privatization was a result of patronage from the growing national bourgeoisie. Murals were increasingly contracted for theaters, banks, and hotels.
Mexican School of Painting and Sculpture