Flooded with native images, the murals comprise a variety of artistic modes. Whether allegorical, realistic, or satirical, the murals send out compelling messages about the conflicts and aspirations of the people of Mexico. The significance of the merging social classes by means of art is best explained by Jean Charlot (an assistant of Diego Rivera) for, “when native and middle class share one criterion where art is concerned, we shall be culturally redeemed, and national art, one of the solid bases of national consciousness, will have become a fact.”
Despite artistic conflicts and definitive styles, the overall intention of these great artists was to convey social and political messages to the people of Mexico and to the world. The natural and bold vibrant colors of Mexico highlighted the nationalistic and revolutionary ideas provoking the visual senses. Writer Elena Poniatowska writes of Mexico’s colors stating, “If there is color there is culture; if there is color,” as rich as the sunset hues seen in mural art, “there is a mind that had to investigate how to incarnate an idea through painting.”
All large in scale, the figures in Mexican muralist art have defined striking bodies and moving facial expressions complimented by the vibrant colors of Mexico’s natural landscapes. The themes of the murals include everything from depictions of the Day of the Dead, May Day in Moscow to allegorical themes such as the Virgin of Guadeloupe and Prometheus. Panels of murals presented illustrations of daily life, to blazing depictions of the Revolution, to surreal images of allegory and symbol.
Although Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco are frequently discussed together as representatives of the same movement in art, their convictions and principles vary. Internationally popular yet undisciplined in his personal life, Diego Rivera worked to express modern Mexico and hoped to inspire the people to fight for their indigenous identity. As the passionate expressionist, Siqueiros devoted his mind and artwork to the communist party and politics. Spending time in prison, linked with assassinations, and unabashed in his beliefs, this enraged man painted furiously in order to inspire social and political change. Class struggle, workers rights and the day to day struggles; these were the contemporary issues concerning Siqueiros. Then there was the enigmatic Jose Clemente Orozco who was not the charged activist type, but more of a distant and bookish philosopher. Mocking his contemporaries for relying on facile hope and simple solutions, Orozco’s mind struggled with obscure, pessimistic thoughts about the human condition. Amongst issues of class division and workers rights, to democracy and Mexican identity, the muralist associated with, and painted for, a variety of factions.
