Voices ofMexico /October • December, 1995 41 The muralist movement: Orozco, Rivera· and Siqueiros

Marice/a González Cruz Manjarrez*

Diego Rivera, Water, Origin oflife, detail. Polystyrene and cernen/, 1951. Photos from the book El muralismo de Orozco, Rivera y Siqueiros, Chapultepec Park, Mexico City. lnstirute for Aesthetic Rcsearch, UNAM. 42 Voices o/Mexico /October e December. 1995

uralism is one ofthe Stalinism and Trotskyism as well as with the search far a national fundamental artistic anti-fascist and anti-government aesthetic, have given this movement a movements in the culture positions, its intemal contradictions, vital, subversive, spontaneous and M of contemporary Mexico. and the expressive wealth --or, dynamic potential. This made it into Because of its aesthetic conceptions, sometimes, the reiteration and the obligatory reference point artistic force and political connotations, schematism- of its images. mentioned above. this movement is a key historical Despite this diversity, certain When muralism lost the reference point and has become a part of characteristics remain constant in above-mentioned characteristics, our cultural codes and values. this movement. These are the traits joining and blurring itself into the Nevertheless, the movement is often that, affinities, rejections, political Mexican School of Painting, this evaluated on the basis of positions ar cultural preferences dynamic feeling was transformed. commonplaces; its images are aside, allow it to be defined as a From that point on artistic forms and sometimes applied in ways which distort movement and make possible its practices were detennined more by a the movement's meaning or reduce it to evaluation and in sorne cases even feeling of permanency and sticking to cardboard-figure stereotypes. its validity. Sorne ofthese codes ar closed structures, rather than We are living in a period when characteristics are: searching and experimentation. relativism, ambiguity, obsolescence Like other vanguard artistic At different times and in different and the fragmentary impose movements, Muralism shares artistic ways, Siqueiros, Orozco and Rivera themselves on economic, political proposals that promete new -founders of the muralist movement and cultural life. At the same time perceptions and aesthetic practices. It who were also 1inked to the Mexican everything is run according to the renews language and seeks to break School of Painting- carried out work prevalence of saturation, with the predominant modes of artistic that traced key lines of demarcation. A massiveness, uniformity and production and circulation. It basic premise of their work was that cosmopolitanism. In this context it is organized groups far presenting its art would use irnages, practice and necessary to reevaluate movements conceptions (the Union ofWorkers, writing in arder to question the such as muralism on the basis of Technicians, Painters and Sculptors - historie period in which it was created. their own development and from our SOTPE- was founded in 1922); put Thus, from their personal style contemporary viewpoint. The out a manifesto (the SOTPE -linked to such 20th-century artistic objective: understanding, for Manifesto, published in late 1923); vanguards as Expressionism, Cubism example, how and why mural art not and used writings, conferences, and Futurism- to the way they only succeeded in presenting itself communications media (El Machete, sought an integral artistic approach, on the walls where it was originally 1924-1925), as well as the creation of these men became the most important painted, but also moved to museums, public art in association with figures in a period which spanned two was reproduced in schoolbook daily life. decades ( 1920-1940). Their influence illustrations and mass-media images; Muralism participated in ali of continues to this day. how it has been used as a backdrop these arenas. Key was the way it used These three muralists' artistic far public and government events, nationalist practices to question trajectories did not develop in the in information pamphlets, as images Eurocentrism. The need to provide same way. Although all three founders on banners at demonstrations, in public art ánd create a Mexican ofthe muralist movement began their cartoons as well as deluxe art- aesthetic in the plastic arts led these artistic training at the old Academia de book editions. artists to take realism as a point of San Carlos, and their work established Mexican muralism is one and departure in arder to recreate, the principal lines that would man y, subject to different assimilate and rcevaluate the customs, characterize the movement over the interpretations, depending on the features, fiestas, myths, geography and course of two decades, they had focus, time or "use" it isjudged by. history of cornmunities which widely divergent artistic languages This is dueto its heterogeneity, its constitute the base of national cultures. and ways of concretely realizing their relation to the post-revolutionary Art understood as social practice, murals and using painting to express Mexican govemment (its main knowledge and life flowed together their concems. sponsor), its proximity to political in the poetry ofthe muralist Born in different states -Orozco tendencies such as Populism, movement. Its attempt to recuperate in Jalisco (1883), Rivera in the elemental dimensions of daily life Guanajuato (1886) and Siqueiros in • Membcr ofthe lm,titute for Aesthetic and the importance of social groups, Chihuahua (1896)- all three carne to Research. UNAM. so as to form values in accordance Mexico City as young boys and it was -

Voices o/Mexico /October • December, /995 43

there that they carried out their most of spectators and dynamic expression affinity with Futurism) are linked to a important artistic work. in representation.) political position associating the While Rivera did importan! easel Of the three, it is Siqueiros who revolutionary with socialism. paintings in Europe, especially those experimented with and theoretically Diego Rivera was probably the ofhis Cubist period (still not fully proposed the use of new materials and muralist with the most solid artistic appreciated on an intemational level), artistic fonns of perception. Siqueiros, training and the one who assimilated Siqueiros painted murals in Latin above all, put into practice his desire schools and artistic currents as diverse America. The three later worked in the to maintain hannony between new as those of the Italian Renaissance, the United States during the l 930s, subjects and artistic objects, within the French Cubism of Cézanne and leaving behind significan! murals like framework of modemity through Gauguin and the Spanish Realism of those painted by Rivera in Detroit, group work (in New York, San El Greco, among others. Orozco in New York and Siqueiros in Miguel Allende and Mexico City), In his re-creation of Mexican California. (It was in California that conferences and writings. culture, he used ali types of artistic Siqueiros first put into practice a new He carne to produce works where resources, synthetic forms, curved muralistic concept in terms of the use experimentation, monumentality and lines, planar and pyramidal of materials, placement, the movement dynamic feeling (showing a certain composition and rich coloring.

José Clemente Orozco, The Carniva/ of Ideologies or the Politica/ Circus. Fresco, /937. Government Palace, Guadalajara, Jalisco. 44

David Alfaro Siqueiros, Social Securityfor Ali Mexicans. Pyroxyline and vinyl on celo/ex, 1952-1954, Hospital de la Raza, Mexico City.

José Clemente Orozco, Al/egory o[Nationality. Fresco, 1940. Gabino Ortiz Library, Jiquilpan, Michoacán.

Diego Rivera, The Elements and Technical Man. Mother Earth. Fresco, 1923-27. Autonomous University o[Chapingo, state of Mexico. Voices o/Mexico /October • December. 1995 45

Detail and the grouping of figures humanistic frarnework, in Orozco's political and religious dogmatism form a didactic and eclectic murals. This is manifested artistically and totalitarianism. narration which maintains a constant through symbols, allegories or The expressive capacity and and optimistic reference to metaphors and sarcasm, irony and coherence of discourse, on the basis of socialism. denunciation. The expressionistic an aesthetic linked to nationalism Rivera's synthesis and force ofhis style ofangular lines, the -elements present in ali three ofthese codification of elements from use of diagonals, wide brushstrokes, masters of muralism- give the muralist Mexican reality, together with his tension and restricted tonal range movement a place ofhonor in the expressive capacity, make him one of (gray, ocher, red and orange) are Mexico's art and within the the most popular muralists. masterfully used to question - contemporary artistic movements ( such Social criticism and individual among other things- false as Constructivism) which seek to concems alternate, within a established values, mass movements, .ntegrate art with politics and daily life. Ni·

David Alfare Siqueiros, Portrait ofthe Bourgeoisie, detail. Pyroxy/ine on cement, 1939. Union of Mexican Electrical Workers, Mexico City.