How was Mexican muralism born at San Ildefonso?
Mexican muralism is born at San Ildefonso
El muralismo mexicano
c. 1922–1926. After the fighting, the education minister José Vasconcelos wanted an art that would teach a largely illiterate country its history on the walls of public…
Draft: not yet checked against its sources.
Where: Mexico, The whole Spanish-speaking world, Mexico City
What happened
After the fighting, the education minister José Vasconcelos wanted an art that would teach a largely illiterate country its history on the walls of public buildings. He brought Diego Rivera back from Paris and gave him the amphitheatre of the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City, the former National Preparatory School. Rivera's La creación (1922) is usually counted the start of the movement, though Roberto Montenegro's Árbol de la vida came a year earlier. Between 1922 and 1926 some forty more works went up in the building, by Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, the 'three greats', and others; students at first defaced some of them. Frida Kahlo, a student at the school, later married Rivera and became, in her own small paintings, as famous as any muralist.
Say it
Los muralistas pintaron la historia de México en las paredes de los edificios públicos.
The muralists painted Mexico's history on the walls of public buildings.
Why it matters
Muralism is Latin America's first art movement to be imitated worldwide, from Chile to the United States, and it fixed the images of Mexican history, Cuauhtémoc, Hidalgo, Zapata, that Mexicans carry in their heads.
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Connected
- The Mexican Revolution begins (20 November 1910–1920)
- The Mexican Revolution begins (20 November 1910–1920)
- The Constitution of 1917 and Article 27 (5 February 1917)
- The Generation of '27 and Lorca (16 December 1927–August 1936)
- Before: The Constitution of 1917 and Article 27
- After: The Association of Academies of the Spanish Language
Sources
- San Ildefonso, cuna del muralismo mexicano — Gaceta UNAM