Muralism in the Palacio de las Bellas Artes

With the support of the Fideicomiso del Centro Histórico of Mexico City, I had the pleasure of visiting the murals in the museum of the Palacio de las Bellas Artes. During the visit, we had an excellent explanation of the specialized tour guides about the paintings of the representative masters of muralism.

Currently, seventeen permanent masterpieces are exhibited that reflect the political, social, and labor struggle, being these a key reference of the Mexican muralist movement.

Some narrative murals part of this brilliant program are:

• Diego Rivera: El hombre Controlador del Universo 1934
• José Clemente Orozco: Katharsis 1934
• Diego Rivera: Políptico Carnaval de la Vida Mexicana 1936
• Diego Rivera: Revolución Rusa o Tercera internacional 1933
• David Alfaro Siqueiros: Tormento de Cuauhtémoc 1951
• David Alfaro Siqueiros: Nueva Democracia 1944
• Jorge González Camarena: Liberación 1963
• Roberto Montenegro: Alegoría del Viento 1928
• Manuel Rodríguez Lozano: La piedad en el desierto 1942
• Rufino Tamayo: Nacimiento de nuestra Nacionalidad 1952 y México Hoy 1953

Given the profound social, cultural and educational inequalities in the 1920s, muralism was consolidated as a pictorial artistic movement, which distinguished itself by having an educational purpose that sought to spread part of Mexican culture and life to a mass public, where artists expressed their vision of national identity.

Mexican muralism is a pictorial movement that originated just after the Mexican Revolution and that acquired truly transcendent importance. It is one of the first pictorial movements in Latin America in the 20th century that deliberately commits itself to break with Europeanizing aesthetics and legitimizing Latin American aesthetics in search of Authenticity.

“Muralism in the Palacio de las Bellas Artes” By Jerry Ham.