Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940: Art of the New Order - Hardcover

Folgarait, Leonard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521581478 ISBN 13: 9780521581479

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1998

Synopsis

A study of paintings in a revolutionary period of Mexico's history (1920–1940).

About this title

Review

The revolutionary art of early 20th-century Mexico has often been dismissed as crude, social-realist propaganda. Leonard Folgarait's Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940 is a refreshing riposte to this simplistic belief, in its extensive examination of the remarkable series of public murals painted in Mexico City between 1920 and 1940 by the great mural-painters of revolutionary Mexico: Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco, and David Siqueiros.

Folgarait squarely situates these mural painters within the context of post-revolutionary Mexico, analysing the politics which lay behind the commissioning of the three painters to create large, public murals for popular consumption, and the political commitment which shaped the artistic responses of all three artists. The book is particularly convincing in its detailed analysis of Rivero's mural of Mexican history which now adorns the National Palace, and which was completed in 1935, and David Siqueiros' remarkable Portrait of the Bourgeoisie, completed in 1940 at the headquarters of the Mexican Union of Electricians.

Early sections of the book struggle under a rather laboured attempt to define a political and theoretical methodology through which to analyse the murals. At times this gives the book a rather clumsy feel, as it often reads more like a brief guide to revolutionary Mexican history than a study of the murals. This is a pity, as when Folgarait gets down to closely scrutinising the murals, the book comes alive with the complex symbolism and specifically Mexican nature of the murals. Well illustrated and with useful notes and bibliography, this book should appeal to anyone wanting to explore this turbulent and creative period of Mexican art and politics. --Jerry Brotton

Review

'... this book offers a compelling answer to the question of just how the deeply anarchic works of Rivera and Siqueiros could have ended up on the walls of buildings which - like Mexico City's National Palace - were the embodiment of repressive governmental order.' The Times Literary Supplement

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521581478
• ISBN 13: 9780521581479
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288