south of the border -- art and blood

At the beginning of the last century Mexico was divided by class and ethnicity and it was grinding itself down to bloody oblivion. Peasant armies, power hungry elites, and foreigners interfering had fractured society into irreconcilable polarities whose only remaining coin was death. It wasn’t the generals and politicians who finally brought them together. It was the painters.

Diego Rivera portrayed them all -- conquistadors, industrialists, farmers, and native people all standing together in big murals, solemn, dignified, and equal. Pre-conquest culture, traditionally derided by the colonialists was acknowledged and a pride in simply being Mexican began to make it possible for them to deal with each other. Other renowned painters addressed basic social issues, and their movement spread to the United States where the WPA hired out-of-work artists to muralize public buildings and post offices in the 1930’s.

The ability of these scenes from ordinary life to influence the self-image and the social concerns of average citizens was so alarming to the top percent that a new art declaring the representational image obsolete and unintelligent surged to predominance with heavy financial backing shortly thereafter. Oddly coincidental is all I’m saying. The last of the post offices are coming down about now, although most of the murals were destroyed years ago. There is a movement in San Francisco to save the murals in Coit’s tower -- worth googling.

We don’t have the same conditions now and art that renews our tattered social fabric probably wouldn’t make it into public spaces for reasons we’ve discussed previously. Everybody gets to decide for themselves, but I’d suggest some sort of art that compensates for the constant assault on our pride and personhood streaming out of commercial media. It’s just the way they sell stuff but it takes a toll on everyone. Owning art that verifies your own experience, with qualities of merit you recognize yourself, would probably influence you in your daily life in ways you would approve of.