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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
In 1920, at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City a series of experiments into the techniques of fresco painting blossomed into a full-blown mural movement that captured and held the American imagination for thirty years. Long before the names of the painters were famous as “revolutionary” artists, however, Mexican art had been in revolutionary ferment. The painters, despite their many individual differences, shared a common rich heritage which made possible the success of the mural movement.
The creative outburst which culminated in the Mexican mural movement was dependent upon two oddly dissimilar precedents. The first was the formal academic training most of the painters received at the Academy of San Carlos, the government-supported art school. The second was their participation in a bloody revolution and their assessment of the struggle when peace was restored.
1 The development of nationalism in the Academy is, in part, the subject of Jean Chariot's Mexican Art and the Academy of San Carlos, 1785-1915 (Austin, 1962).
2 Kneller, George F., The Education of the Mexican Nation (New York, 1951), p. 40.Google Scholar
3 Ibid., p. 42.
4 Fernández, Justino, Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo de México (Mexico, 1952), p. 198.Google Scholar
5 Ibid., p. 15-189. A detailed history of San Carlos in this period is found in this study.
6 Schmeckebier, Laurence E., Modern Mexican Art (Minneapolis, 1939), p. 27.Google Scholar
7 Ibid.
8 Charlot, Jean, “Diego Rivera at the Academy of San Carlos,” College Art Journal, Vol. X, no. 1 (Autumn, 1950), p. 12–17.Google Scholar
9 Charlot, Jean, “Orozco and Siqueiros at the Academy of San Carlos,” College Art Journal, Vol. X, no. 4 (Summer, 1951), p. 335.Google Scholar
10 Charlot, “Orozco and Siqueiros,” p. 356.
11 Charlot, , “Rivera,” p. 17.Google Scholar That same year, Diego Rivera lost his Academy scholarship but won another from General Teodoro Dehesa, Governor of Vera Cruz, that allowed him to begin his European studies.
12 Charlot, , “Orozco and Siqueiros,” p. 356.Google Scholar
13 Charlot, , “Rivera,” p. 17.Google Scholar
14 Charlot, , “Orozco and Siqueiros,” p. 356–357.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., p. 357.
16 Ibid., p. 358.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., p. 359.
20 Helm, MacKinley, J. C. Orozco, Man of Fire (New York, 1953), p. 19.Google Scholar
21 Orozco, José Clemente, Autobiografía (Mexico, 1945), p. 33.Google Scholar
22 Schmeckebier, p. 28.
23 Charlot, , “Orozco and Siqueiros,” p. 362.Google Scholar
24 Quoted in Charlot, , “Orozco and Siqueiros,” p. 362–363.Google Scholar
25 Schmeckebier, p. 28.
26 See Publicaciones de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, Las Escuelas de Tintura al Aire Libre (Mexico, 1926).
27 Charlot, , “Orozco and Siqueiros,” p. 365.Google Scholar
28 Myers, Bernard S., Mexican Fainting in Our Time (New York, 1956), p. 13.Google Scholar
29 Hackett, Charles Wilson, The Mexican Revolution and the United States (Boston, 1926), p. 344.Google Scholar
30 Myers, p. 13. The presses were from Atl's Casa del Obrero Mundial, a union which he had helped establish in 1912. See Orozco, , Autobiografía, p. 51 Google Scholar, and Moisés Poblete Troncoso and Burnett, Ben G., The Rise of the Latin American Labor Movement (New Haven, 1960), p. 98–99.Google Scholar
31 Orozco, , Autobiografía, p. 54.Google Scholar
32 Arroyo, Antonio Luna, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Pintor de Nuestro Tiempo (Mexico, 1950), p. 15.Google Scholar
33 These cartoons are reproduced in Obras de José Clemente Orozco en h colección Carrillo Gil, catálogo y notas de Justino Fernández, Vol. 2 (Mexico, 1953), n. p.
34 Chariot, Jean, “Orozco's Stylistic Evolution,” College Art Journal, Vol. X, no. 2 (Winter, 1949-50), p. 150–151.Google Scholar
35 This caricature, with others from the above-mentioned exhibition, are reproduced in Obras de José Clemente Orozco en la colección Carrillo Gil, catálogo y notas de Justino Fernández, Vol. I (Mexico, 1949), p. 15.
36 “… no encontrando en Mexico un ambiente favorable para los artistas …,” Orozco, , Autobiografía, p. 59.Google Scholar
37 Ibid. Orozco only mentions the incident, but the bitterness caused by the destruction was lasting.
38 Charlot, , “Orozco and Siqueiros,” p. 365.Google Scholar
39 Ibid., p. 356-366.
40 Arroyo, Luna, Siqueiros, p. 15–16.Google Scholar
41 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, ed. Vida americana, Vol. I, no. 1 (Barcelona, May, 1921).Google Scholar The above summary of Siqueiros’ statements is found in Anita Brenner's classic Idols Behind Altars (New York, 1929), p. 241.
42 Gamio, Manuel, Forjando Patria (Mexico, 1916), p. 135–138.Google Scholar
43 Myers, p. 13-14. The results of these studies are found in Manuel Gamio, La población del valle de Teotihuacán (Mexico, 1922).
44 Myers, p. 14, 20. Atl's survey was published as Los Artes Populares en México, 2 vols., (México, 1922).
