The Mexican and Chicano Mural Movements
María Cardalliaguet Gómez-Málaga
Guide Entry to 06.02.01
As a result of this unit, students will learn about the renaissance of public mural painting in Mexico after the Revolution (1910-1917) and how Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, the three main figures of the Mexican mural movement, turned what could be considered revolutionary propaganda into one of the most powerful and significant achievements in art during the twentieth century. Students will recognize the importance of images and how art reflects and influences the social, political and cultural development of society. We will explore the relevance these artists had internationally, and how they trespassed boundaries when assigned different projects in the United States as part of Roosevelt's New Deal. We will then move to the young Chicano artists and activists, who developed a very strong movement to support social activism during the 1960s. We will focus on learning how this Chicano movement developed and how to comprehend and interpret the symbols Chicano artists represented.
The unit is recommended for Spanish students with at least an intermediate level of fluency since it is going to be conducted in Spanish.
(Developed for Spanish, grades 11-12; recommended for Spanish 3 and 4, grades 11-12)
