Mexico City: Rivera Murals

Mexico is big on murals. Most of them focus on Mexican history: the culture of the indigenous peoples, the Spanish conquest, the war of independence, the Marxist revolution. They are certainly imposing, sometimes occupying hundreds of feet of corridor from floor to ceiling, but...

I dunno.

I just haven't been all that impressed. They weren't all that skillful or moving. Nothing worth writing home about, as it were. But in El Palacio Gobierno in Mexico City there are a series of murals by Diego Rivera that are unquestionably masterpieces.

First, some context. El Palacio Gobiero is located on the Zócalo, Ciudad de México's main square. For some strange reason, I didn't take any photos of the exterior. But it's alright: this photographer had a much better vantage point (photo credit: Flickr).


The interior of El Palacio Gobiero. The murals begin in the main stairwell (toward the left) then run on the second floor from left to right, starting at the far corner and continuing around the next.


The three decorated walls of the stairwell form a triptych. Here we see Quetzalcóatl going through his life cycle: created by serpents he accompanies the sun at night, next, having assumed human form, he becomes the king and patriarch of the Aztec and finally, having sacrificed himself to give life to mankind, he returns to the sky as the morning star.


The center panel depicts the many terrible wars in Mexican history: the Spanish conquest, the war for Independence, the French and American invasions and finally the Marxist revolution at the beginning of the 20th century.


Rivera's vision of a communist paradise in Mexico. Note Marx himself overseeing everything at the top and Frida Kahlo's likeness at the bottom center, behind the woman in red.


On the second floor itself there are a series of murals depicting indigenous civilization in Mexico. Here we see the marketplace of Tenochtitlan with the city itself in the background.


Weaving and dying cloth.

Artisans at work.


Receiving visiting dignitaries.


Harvesting pulque, which is a type of sap from which is made a milky alcoholic beverage. I tried it one night. Meh.


Agriculture. The Aztec built up shallow lakebeds into incredibly fertile islands which supported the 200,000 inhabitants of Tenochtitlan.


Harvesting tropical fruit.


Harvesting and processing agave (I think).


And then it all comes crashing down.

I stared at this mural for at least 10 minutes, transfixed. After all of the other scenes of a flourishing civilization, the tragedy of the Spanish conquest is overwhelming. It's worth dwelling on some of the details of this mural.

The Spanish were big on torture (Inquisition, anyone?), but note also how the spectators crowd around, not all of them horrified by the spectacle. Cortes never would have conquered the Aztec without the active aide of the Aztec's various vassal states. They sought only to end their subservience to the Aztec, never comprehending that the Spanish were a completely different type of threat, voracious but impossible to satisfy.


A tremendous amount of money was made on the suffering of the indigenous peoples. In the 100 years following the fall of the Aztec, 90% or more of the indigenous peoples perished. What would it be like to be that child on the woman's back, to grow up without any hope of reprieve?


Even the animals are aware of the coming storm. The mourn the death of their land.


And all of it overseen and blessed by the church. To be fair, the church would eventually become a positive force in the lives of the indigenous, but the Conquistadores committed terrible crimes while claiming the benevolent approval of God.