Muralism – Timeless Resonances in Latin American Art

Mexican muralist art stretched back to pre-colonial times when indigenous people captured the grandeur of ancient civilization and its architecture. In an a twentieth-century context, the three pioneers of Muralism lamented the false consciousness of politics and its severing of traditional culture. Muralism was anti-ideology in the sense that its art served to highlight the vitriolic influence of politics upon common Mexican people.

Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco used history as a template to undermine the repressive government and evoke a utopian past. Even though the muralist were often contracted by the Mexican government, the central aim of their art was to express the depravity and hardship of average civilian life during the revolution. Three important murals are explored by these artists to convey both failed utopian longings and timeless resonances in Latin American art.

Ghosts from a Historical Graveyard

Illiteracy was a prominent social ailment during the Mexican Revolution. The government thus employed Diego Rivera to broadcast classical elements of Mexican life to a majority who could not read or write. Rivera’s The Arrival of Cortés used colonial ideology to chart enduring class tensions in Mexico. The mural has a vibrant life energy instilled in the contrast between Hispanic colonizers and indigenous Latin American people. There is a lot of activity in The Arrival of Cortés, with an indigenous labor force building the backbone of primitive Hispanic society. Rivera alludes to the origins of Mexican society as a barbarous process likened to the ongoing civil war. The visage of slave labor and colonial rule is expansive in this mural, encompassing drastic changes to the social order and the natural environment. Rivera evokes longing to a distant past where communalism prospered, instead of class conflict and human life being a utility for war or the colonial elite. David Alfaro Siqueiros struck a topical vein like Rivera in his stark mural The Revolution.

A vast sea of discontent faces swell around the parameters of The Revolution mural. These are faces of men and women who are commoners and fighting to survive during a civil war that claimed close to two million lives. Siqueiros provides a voice for people who did not have the linguistic tools to broadcast their stories or message. Similar to the energy of slave labor in The Arrival of Cortés, Siqueiros uses art to expose facets of humanity that are typically smothered and repressed by government regimes. The faces of people in The Revolution are hard to distinguish, but there is nuance to the posture and body language of each individual person in the mural. Like ghosts from a historical graveyard, Siqueiros’ commoners haunt the imagination of the viewer—prompting questions of who these people were and what their stories entailed. José Clemente Orozco’s mural Prometheus re-imagines the Greek god from the context of the Mexican civil war, showcasing the wages of empire and development of modern culture.

Prometheus is a figure that seized the might of fire, emblematic of the creative spirit from the Gods, to advance human civilization. Orozco astutely portrays Prometheus in anguish while struggling to prevent the collapse of modern society. Humans with pallid skeleton-like personas crowd around a tortured Prometheus—symbolizing the cost of an industrializing Mexico. The color scheme contains harsh red and corpse-flesh tones that lacerate the bodies of the figures. Fire denotes war and carnage in Mexican culture, so there is no doubt a connection between the civil war and Prometheus’ agony in the worldly sphere. The faces of Prometheus’ prisoners resemble the facial structures of Indigenous Latin Americans. Prometheus in fact appears isolated from the unified suffering of his fellow prisoners. While the rest of the figures in the Prometheus mural are languishing, he attempts to draw-down fire onto the population. Orozco compliments the lurid theme of violence and social unrest in Latin American muralism. No doubt influenced by the philosophies of Karl Marx, these three central Muralist sought to humanize the oppressed and showcase a darker side to Mexican culture.

The post Muralism – Timeless Resonances in Latin American Art appeared first on Art and Design Inspiration.

All aspiring artists are no doubt familiar with Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist who while creating amazing and inspiring works of art, led a short life filled with pain and tragedy. Dying just one week after her 47th birthday, Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon is widely know in the art world for her self-portraits. Even today, nearly 60 years after her death, Kahlo’s paintings fetch more money than any other female artist (as a side note, Madonna is an avid collector of Frida’s art and is thought that she owns Kahlo’s 1943 work Roots purchased for $5.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction.)

Surviving a serious traffic accident as a teen, Kahlo suffered health problems throughout her short life, which resulted in somewhat of an isolated life, one reason she did so many self-portraits – 55, to be exact. Married to Diego Rivera, another famous Mexican artist, the relationship was often described as volatile and passionate. While the marriage was considered a stormy, rocky relationship, it survived not only Kahlo’s poor health, but infidelities, an inability to have children, even her bi-sexual affairs and the pressures of a career only passionate artists can truly understand.

Frida’s art often spoke volumes of the pain and tragedy she suffered throughout her life, first after being struck by a bus at the age of 18 that left her body in shambles and caused her to endure more than 30 surgeries, and having survived polio. Frida’s talent was creating exquisite Mexican folk art, a passion that helped her express her experiences in life. In fact, it was said by one critic that Frida’s paintings were essentially her biography.

Frida was 22 years old when she married 42-year-old Diego Rivera, and although their turbulent, passionate marriage endured nearly every heartache imaginable, the two divorced and remarried at one point. Perhaps something she once said summed up her deepest feelings: “I suffered two grave accidents in my life . . . One in which a streetcar knocked me down and the other was Diego.” Sadly, Frida was crippled both physically and emotionally, although perhaps the tragedy in her life is what made her one of the greatest and most expressive artists of all time.

It seems that many truly inspiring artists have led lives that were fraught with pain, emotional trauma, and other experiences many of us never endure. Perhaps this is what makes the creative works of these artists so inspiring, unusual, expressive, loved by people all over the world? While Frida’s life was brief and what could only be described as tragic, her legacy lives on today.

The paintings below are a few of our favorite and expressive Frida portraits that capture the essence of her life experiences.

What the Water Gave Me was Frida’s memoir of her life, depicting life and death and comfort and loss. In the midst of her vision lies the way in which Frida found herself submerged by her life.

Roots is said to be an expression of Frida’s inability to have children. Giving birth to a vine, this self-portrait of Frida shows a vine flowing from her heart and away from her body rooting towards the ground. As you look closely you will see the parched earth cracking and the feeling that she is close to being swallowed up by the earth. The painting has a delicate balance between hopeful life and desperation.

The Broken Column is one of Frida’s most tormented self-portraits. During 1946–1950 Frida Kahlo underwent 8 operations to her spine. This painting is an expression of the operations and her pain.

In The Wounded Deer, Frida Kahlo paints herself as an animal and human hybrid. Kahlo is representing herself as part male and part female, as well as elements of human and animal features. Around the time she created The Wounded Deer, Frida Kahlo made a drawing of a young deer in her diary, which is thought to be inspired by her pet deer, Granizo.

See more of Frida – three of her most compelling paintings – click/tap here.

The post Frida Kahlo: Art, Expression, and the Tragedy of an Inspiring Life Cut Short appeared first on Art and Design Inspiration.