¶ … Revolutionary history of Mexico [...] interrelationships of art and events in Mexico for the revolutionary period. It seems that revolution in a country also breeds artistic development and reform. As freedom beckons, so does the creative process and the need to document the events of the revolution. This is certainly the case in the history of the Mexican Revolution and the resulting onslaught of artwork and creativity that resulted. Some of Mexico's most famous artists, such as Diego Rivera, came out of the revolutionary period, and their influence on world art cannot be denied.
In the case of the Mexican muralists, the art directly reflected the events of the period; in fact, many muralists like Rivera used real revolutionary figures and events as part of their subject matter. Rivera painted a modern, cubistic Zapatista Guerrilla in one of his most famous paintings, and he did several murals depicting the history of Mexico including a mural in Cuernavaca in 1930 depicting important revolutionary figures Jose Maria Morelos and Emiliano Zapata.
Of course, the muralists were not the only artists working in Mexico at the time. There were dozens, even hundreds of painters, musicians, writers, and dancers who all worked during the Revolution and created new works and new ways of portraying Mexico and Mexican history through their art. Writer Amanda Hopkinson states, "In the 1920s, Mexico City became a magnet for a new generation of artists and writers hoping to capture the revolutionary spirit in their work" (Hopkinson, 2004). Thus, the revolution spawned creativity and a keen sense of Mexican history and nationalism during the Revolution and after.
The events indeed influenced the art of the period, perhaps no more so than through the art of Mexican artist and revolutionary Diego Rivera. He is one of the most famous Mexican artists who painted during that time and showed the world what was occurring in Mexico. Rivera was born in Guanajuato in 1886, and he grew up in Mexico City....
By the age of ten, he was taking drawing lessons at night in a school in Mexico City. In 1898 he started attending the school full-time, and by 1906 he had his first showing of his works. In 1907 he traveled to Spain and other parts of Europe, and he settled in Paris for a time, where he had several more exhibitions. World War I broke out, and Rivera heard of Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican Revolutionary who wanted to return Mexico to the "people." After a while, Rivera too became a revolutionary, and it is his revolutionary paintings that are probably the most remembered and revered in Mexico.
He returned to Mexico in 1921, and began painting a series of murals depicting the native Mexicans, the revolutionaries, and historic subjects. He formed a labor union of painters and other artists, and joined the Communist Party. His murals and paintings became even more revolutionary, showing the hammer and sickle representative of the Communist Party, and radical revolutionaries fighting with machine guns and propaganda. He remained a loyal Communist for the rest of his life, and painted several popular murals in Mexico, and even some in the United States. One of the most controversial was "Man at the Crossroads," which depicted a series of people, including Russian leader Lenin, and Americans demanded the mural be removed. It was eventually chipped off the wall of Radio City Music Hall before it was completed, and Rivera painted a different version on a building in Mexico. Rivera died in 1957 in Mexico City, and he is still remembered as one of Mexico's greatest artists. Influenced by the Revolution, his art reflected the changing values in Mexico and across the globe.
Governmental events also helped the arts flourish during this time. The minister of education between 1921 and 1924 was Jose Vasconcelos, and he modernized schools, libraries, literature, and even took "cultural missions" to the rural population. He was also a strong patron of the arts, and during his time in office, he commissioned ballets…
