Mexican Muralists - Softcover

Desmond Rochfort

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1856690237 ISBN 13: 9781856690232

Publisher: Laurence King, 1993

Synopsis

For nearly five decades, these three artists - Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros - created works in Mexico and in the United States that are perhaps some of the most powerful and significant examples of public mural art since the Italian Renaissance, yet the muralists themselves remain little-known outside America. This book aims to redress the balance, tracing the lives of the three artists from their childhood in a rural, feudal society through the years of revolution and the first commissions from the new state to the years of their artistic maturity and their greatest works. The book also examines the paintings in the context of their cultural and political background.

About this title

Review:

In Mexico in the early 1920s, a growing, collective social consciousness gave rise to a revolutionary furor focused on liberating the country's workers from harsh conditions and poverty. In 1921, Mexican artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros were all commissioned by the government to create educational paintings on the walls of public buildings. After that initial experience, they devoted themselves almost exclusively to painting these large-scale murals--forming the foundation of a movement that would last 50 years. The muralists' work took up the themes of society and revolution. Often the paintings depicted historical vignettes like the story of Cuernavaca and Morelos crossing the barranca, or Mexico's ancient Indians. They satirized contemporary society, created ideal visions of peaceful families, and built up dark, imposing industrial cityscapes then leveled them by depicting the debauchery and death of the capitalist industrialists.

The paintings themselves reflect diverse artistic influences--surrealism, cubism, and illustration, most notable among them. Their bold colors and strong imagery practically bound out of the 150 color plates in this book. Mexican muralist and scholar Desmond Rochfort lucidly traces the development of the movement to place the work in context and provides a solid history of each of the artists' social and artistic influences. This is an excellent overview of work that should appeal both to fans of the individual artists and Mexican art in general. --Jordana Moskowitz

About the Author:

Desmond Rochfort is a scholar of Mexican murals and a public mural artist whose previous work includes The Murals of Diego Rivera. He lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Laurence King
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 1856690237
• ISBN 13: 9781856690232
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 239