How does this artwork elucidate its The roots of Mexican Muralism?
A discussion of modern Mexican muralism begins with José Vasconcelos Calderón (1882–1959). He is one of the many readily identifiable history makers portrayed on the mural. Vasconcelos was a colorful and influential leader from Oaxaca. After the Mexican Revolution ended in 1921, as the Secretary of Education, he obtained a large budget and generated projects to foster nationalism. His Secretariat of Education sponsored large patriotic murals in public spaces.
Arturo García Bustos, as a child, living in El Centro of Mexico City, observed these patriotic murals being painted. Later he studied mural painting from the original muralists such as Diego Rivera who were being funded as part of this nationalist art and Frida Kahlo (with Los Fridos). He collaborated with Kahlo on murals on a daily basis in the mid-1940s. The mural Oaxaca en la historia y el mito springs from the roots of muralism and nationalism that José Vasconcelos planted some 50 years before García Bustos painted this mural.
Vasconcelos, a man with deep connections to the past, lived in Coyoacán, a colonial neighbourhood of Mexico City in the home that Hernán Cortés is said to have built for his interpteter-mistress Marina, sometimes referred to as, La Malinche, 500 years ago. García Bustos, always the champion of Mexican history and antiquity, purchased the home in the early 1960s and lived there for half a century, painting with his wife, the artist, Rina Lazo.
nationalist art Arturo García Bustos Oaxaca Hernán Cortés Rina Lazo José Vasconcelos Mexican Muralism Mexican muralism José Vasconcelos Calderón Mexica La Malinche Diego Rivera colonial Mural Mexican Revolution Frida Kahlo mural