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Filosofía del muralismo mexicano: Orozco, Rivera y Siqueiros
Este libro investiga la relación de los muralistas José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera y David Alfaro Siqueiros, con la estética marxista. Asimismo, analiza de qué manera esa relación se transparenta o se subvierte en los murales. La base de esta aproximación metodológica la encontramos en el "Manifiesto del Sindicato de Obreros Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores" (1924) firmado por varios artistas e intelectuales mexicanos del momento; entre ellos: Xavier Guerrero, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco y Carlos Mérida. En el "Manifiesto", escrito con un lenguaje abiertamente marxista, se plantea la necesidad de crear un arte de masas y un arte público. Además, ya para entonces Diego Rivera y David Alfaro Siqueiros eran miembros del recientemente fundado Partido Comunista Mexicano. Aunque los postulados del "Manifiesto" no llegaron a concretarse en una estética programática, es evidente que la producción muralista se vio influenciada por este documento. Por otro lado, este estudio presupone la existencia de una "filosofía del muralismo", pues sugiere que el muralismo mexicano nos obliga a repensar la noción del espacio público (el mural en el "interior" y el mural en el "exterior"), la noción del espectador, la noción de "arte nacional", la noción de "museo", y la función del artista dentro de la sociedad. De esta manera, el lector encontrará una doble lectura crítica del muralismo: desde la filosofía al mural, y desde el mural a la filosofía.
168 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2012
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December 13, 2018
Marxism, anyone?
A long time ago while studying art history my professor just barely touched on the muralistas. He made some off the cuff comment that they were in a world itself and we needed to move on. I moved on too not thinking much about them until a few months ago when I saw their work firsthand in Mexico City (CDMX). Oh wow, I thought when I saw my first Orozco. Then Siqueiros, Rivera and Tamayo. OMG I was literally blown away. Why?
The drama, the humanity, the beauty, the ugliness, and all the heavy themes. All of life was painted on these walls for all to see. All you had to do is track down the buildings and go see them. I was so impressed that while I was in a bookstore I seriously contemplated buying a massive book that had all the murals listed in CDMX. All of them! My god the book must have been 600 pages and weighed a ton! The attentive clerk, said, “well if you like that book, you must read this book.”
It was very slim and weighed nothing. I liked the title, the philosophy of the Mexican muralists and bought it. So now why did I like the muralistas? The drama, the humanity, the beauty, the ugliness, all the heavy themes and Marxism. Well that is a light subject (he says sarcastically out loud). Yes, perhaps we all need a little Marxism these days? Ha ha I must have lost my mind.
Héctor Jaimes makes some enlightening points here that helps to explain these “rock stars” of the mural world. Of course, Marx wouldn’t be that happy about their fame. The arts for the masses was done to support the people. Social realism is the key. Abstraction was too ambiguous for the people. Art that people understood would help to develop society (so says Marx). And what a perfect storm.
The Mexican Revolution was finished and Mexico was rebuilding in the early 1920s. Under the guidance and support of the secretary of Education, José Vasconcelos encouraged Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros to paint murals.These young men, embraced the readings of Marx and the Communist Party and began painting murals over the next thirty years.
Why murals? Public art. Often painted in the courtyards of buildings. Art in museums are for the rich, not the common people. Style? Social realism. Themes? Mexican Revolution, indigenous peoples like the Aztecs and Maya’s, poverty, exploitation, hunger, fight the wealthy, revolution, revolution and more. Throw in Marx, Lenin and the assorted hammer and sickles and focus on the people.
Size matters. Many of the murals are very large, placed in stairwells and can span different walls. Here the influence of cinema effects the scale. Figures are larger than life. To tell a story, like in cinema, numerous scenes are created with some murals having scores of people.
José Clemente Orozco was the true artist. He rarely wrote anything down about his work. Moody, vibrant, challenging and evocative are words that come to mind. He saw the artist as the critic of society and can be seen in la Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in CDMX. The bourgeois fared poorly on the walls. Can you blame his views then? The rich were getting richer. Jaimes points out that blend of critic, history and metaphor culminated in El hombre en llamas (The man in flames) painted in el Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara. Yes, this is very much the bold artist critic at play. The revolution is ongoing. Marx would have been proud. Orozco was a humanist.
Diego Rivera was the “vanguard spirit”. He spent years in Paris and highly influenced by Picasso and Braque and yet, as soon as he returns to CDMX, he painted realism. And not only that, it is very good realism. Looking at his brush stroke, he deft handiwork produced elegant paintings. His themes are all about the human factor. The dog, the woman with the basket and child, even his Frida’s are almost delicately painted, full of life. He is a painter’s painter.
Rivera’s politics were a problem. He painted murals that enfuriated his American patrons (Lenin was not a selling point to Rockefeller). Oddly his success and his ties to Trotsky ran him out from the Communist party. He was his own man and that was the problem. He was flippant. Rivera was a painter who wore his politics on his sleeve.
David Alfonso Siqueiros was all politics. His colours are intense and brash but he also challenged the realism, creating a hybrid blend of surrealism, geometric and stylized images. His murals became enormous, almost three dimensional. Starting with the multi-panel historical mural Del porfirismo a la Revolution for el Museo Nacional de Historia Castillo de Chapultepec culminating in La marcha de la humanidad for the Polyforum, Siqueiros painted a larger than life ideology. Siqueiros was bigger than life itself.
Overshadowed by the holy trinity, Rufino Tamayo’s ephemeral style almost negates him from this group. Octavio Paz notes that Tamayo is “more a painter than a muralist” and the plain fact that Tamayo has a museum dedicated to his work, and the others don’t precludes him from this group. Too bad because his murals are very powerful.
Marx and Engels did not have an prescriptive aesthetic but rather a humanist philosophy. Art for the masses. Art done as a collective. Art workshops. The murals were done as workshops were they taught and had help to complete these large commissions. “The Mexican muralistas movement were founded on the basis of political and social conscious, where Marxism subsequently became the philosophical base.” (p. 153) Héctor Jaimes lays out the major points that Rivera and Siqueiros agreed on to be the muralista movement in 1935. One of those points was “to initiate the political art for the masses.” One can say they were very successful in realizing a movement to further the social aspect of Mexico. The paintings exist. They are powerful, beautiful and often moving. I was impressed. They are part of Mexico’s patrimony.
In a weird aspect, the three of them became very famous (Rivera even more thanks to Frida Kalho) and now that communism has been tossed under the bus, what to make of this political aspect? Hmmm.
So in a nutshell, if you are interested in the philosophical angle that helped establish these major Mexican muralists, this book is an excellent starting point. Yes his arguments are deep at time, but it is well documented and the quotes shed light on this fascinating aspect of a Mexican history. That clerk knew what he was talking about.
See, a little Marxism never hurt anyone. A lot of Marxism, now that is a different question.
A long time ago while studying art history my professor just barely touched on the muralistas. He made some off the cuff comment that they were in a world itself and we needed to move on. I moved on too not thinking much about them until a few months ago when I saw their work firsthand in Mexico City (CDMX). Oh wow, I thought when I saw my first Orozco. Then Siqueiros, Rivera and Tamayo. OMG I was literally blown away. Why?
The drama, the humanity, the beauty, the ugliness, and all the heavy themes. All of life was painted on these walls for all to see. All you had to do is track down the buildings and go see them. I was so impressed that while I was in a bookstore I seriously contemplated buying a massive book that had all the murals listed in CDMX. All of them! My god the book must have been 600 pages and weighed a ton! The attentive clerk, said, “well if you like that book, you must read this book.”
It was very slim and weighed nothing. I liked the title, the philosophy of the Mexican muralists and bought it. So now why did I like the muralistas? The drama, the humanity, the beauty, the ugliness, all the heavy themes and Marxism. Well that is a light subject (he says sarcastically out loud). Yes, perhaps we all need a little Marxism these days? Ha ha I must have lost my mind.
Héctor Jaimes makes some enlightening points here that helps to explain these “rock stars” of the mural world. Of course, Marx wouldn’t be that happy about their fame. The arts for the masses was done to support the people. Social realism is the key. Abstraction was too ambiguous for the people. Art that people understood would help to develop society (so says Marx). And what a perfect storm.
The Mexican Revolution was finished and Mexico was rebuilding in the early 1920s. Under the guidance and support of the secretary of Education, José Vasconcelos encouraged Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros to paint murals.These young men, embraced the readings of Marx and the Communist Party and began painting murals over the next thirty years.
Why murals? Public art. Often painted in the courtyards of buildings. Art in museums are for the rich, not the common people. Style? Social realism. Themes? Mexican Revolution, indigenous peoples like the Aztecs and Maya’s, poverty, exploitation, hunger, fight the wealthy, revolution, revolution and more. Throw in Marx, Lenin and the assorted hammer and sickles and focus on the people.
Size matters. Many of the murals are very large, placed in stairwells and can span different walls. Here the influence of cinema effects the scale. Figures are larger than life. To tell a story, like in cinema, numerous scenes are created with some murals having scores of people.
José Clemente Orozco was the true artist. He rarely wrote anything down about his work. Moody, vibrant, challenging and evocative are words that come to mind. He saw the artist as the critic of society and can be seen in la Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in CDMX. The bourgeois fared poorly on the walls. Can you blame his views then? The rich were getting richer. Jaimes points out that blend of critic, history and metaphor culminated in El hombre en llamas (The man in flames) painted in el Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara. Yes, this is very much the bold artist critic at play. The revolution is ongoing. Marx would have been proud. Orozco was a humanist.
Diego Rivera was the “vanguard spirit”. He spent years in Paris and highly influenced by Picasso and Braque and yet, as soon as he returns to CDMX, he painted realism. And not only that, it is very good realism. Looking at his brush stroke, he deft handiwork produced elegant paintings. His themes are all about the human factor. The dog, the woman with the basket and child, even his Frida’s are almost delicately painted, full of life. He is a painter’s painter.
Rivera’s politics were a problem. He painted murals that enfuriated his American patrons (Lenin was not a selling point to Rockefeller). Oddly his success and his ties to Trotsky ran him out from the Communist party. He was his own man and that was the problem. He was flippant. Rivera was a painter who wore his politics on his sleeve.
David Alfonso Siqueiros was all politics. His colours are intense and brash but he also challenged the realism, creating a hybrid blend of surrealism, geometric and stylized images. His murals became enormous, almost three dimensional. Starting with the multi-panel historical mural Del porfirismo a la Revolution for el Museo Nacional de Historia Castillo de Chapultepec culminating in La marcha de la humanidad for the Polyforum, Siqueiros painted a larger than life ideology. Siqueiros was bigger than life itself.
Overshadowed by the holy trinity, Rufino Tamayo’s ephemeral style almost negates him from this group. Octavio Paz notes that Tamayo is “more a painter than a muralist” and the plain fact that Tamayo has a museum dedicated to his work, and the others don’t precludes him from this group. Too bad because his murals are very powerful.
Marx and Engels did not have an prescriptive aesthetic but rather a humanist philosophy. Art for the masses. Art done as a collective. Art workshops. The murals were done as workshops were they taught and had help to complete these large commissions. “The Mexican muralistas movement were founded on the basis of political and social conscious, where Marxism subsequently became the philosophical base.” (p. 153) Héctor Jaimes lays out the major points that Rivera and Siqueiros agreed on to be the muralista movement in 1935. One of those points was “to initiate the political art for the masses.” One can say they were very successful in realizing a movement to further the social aspect of Mexico. The paintings exist. They are powerful, beautiful and often moving. I was impressed. They are part of Mexico’s patrimony.
In a weird aspect, the three of them became very famous (Rivera even more thanks to Frida Kalho) and now that communism has been tossed under the bus, what to make of this political aspect? Hmmm.
So in a nutshell, if you are interested in the philosophical angle that helped establish these major Mexican muralists, this book is an excellent starting point. Yes his arguments are deep at time, but it is well documented and the quotes shed light on this fascinating aspect of a Mexican history. That clerk knew what he was talking about.
See, a little Marxism never hurt anyone. A lot of Marxism, now that is a different question.
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