Mexican muralists: orozco, rivera, siqueiros

Your April 20, Mexican Muralists: Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros Mexico produced three important peoplein art. They are Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. They are also called the Big Three in Mexican painting culture. Apart from making exquisite murals around Mexico, they empowered Mexicans by painting their own history and heritage. They painted murals that have heavy references toward Marxism. It is useful to note that these painters were not poor, but rather middle class citizens who understood what it meant to have money and suffer for it. The murals they painted represented the Mexican’s struggle in searching for their identity, as well as liberty and justice and their sense or origin. Diego Rivera was an atheist but he was a Catholic as a child. His paintings were devoid of any religious figures, as he is also Marxist by nature and being a Marxist, he does not believe in religion too. His technique in painting is largely influenced by Picasso, as in his cubist paintings, but in later years, he developed a more realistic aesthetic. His murals always depict Mexicans, people in his nation and their strength as workers, inspiring them. His themes revolve on the plight of the working man and the Mexican. Sometimes, his work has the figure of the uterus. This is probably the reflection of his frustrations of having a child with Frida Kahlo, his wife who always suffered miscarriages with his children. He works like Jim Casy in the Grapes of Wrath, where the character was a preacher who thought that holiness in found on humans and the earth, not in heavens. This thought is similar to Rivera’s, in a sense that he helps people like Jesus too, not by believing in religion but by always doing what’s right and dignifying humanity. Works Cited: Rochfort, Desmond. Mexican Muralists. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998. Print. Hamill, Pete. Diego Rivera. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2002. Print