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Rochfort, Desmond. Mexican Muralists. San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC, 1993. pages 6- 9. The Big 3, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera "In 1951 the British art critic Herbert Read lamented what he considered to be the Soviet Union's failure, after more than thirty years of strenuous effort, to produce a new art on the bases of a new economy ....Nearly three decades earlier... the Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros issued a manifesto on behalf of the Syndicate of Technical Workers and Sculptors, a newly created artists' trade union. The manifesto declared the coming of a new and revolutionary art in Mexico." Siqueiros wrote, " We
repudiate so-called easel painting and every kind of art favored by ultra-intellectual
circles, and we praise monumental art in all its forms, because it is
public property... The creators of beauty must use their best efforts
to produce... works for the people; art must no longer be the expression
of individual satisfaction (which) it is today, but should aim to become
a fighting educative for all." "The artists' murals could not be bought and sold, for they were created and commissioned as permanent fixtures in some of the most important public buildings of Mexico." The murals became a crucial part of Mexican civic and national life. "For some, it was an art movement dominated by three artists of international renown, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, whose work came to define the essence of what the movement stood for." "Orozco observed that
'The highest, the most logical, the purest form of painting is the mural.
It is, too, the most disinterested form, for it cannot be made a matter
of private gain: it cannot be hidden away for the benefit of a certain
privileged few. It is for the people. It is for ALL.' Rivera said Mexican
muralism had "for the first time in the history of monumental painting
ceased to use gods, kings, chiefs of state, heroic generals, etc. as central
heroes... For the first time in the history of Art, Mexican mural painting
made the masses the hero of monumental art."
(Make final GIST statement)
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