Mexican Culture, Art & Literary Artists

This statement may seem overblown because the names of Mexican graphic artists are not as celebrity-iconographic as, say, Picasso or Warhol, nor as written-about as the country's literary figures, such as Carlos Fuentes and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. If anything, however, it is an understatement. Mexican art in the 20th Century, particularly in the work of muralists such as Diego Rivera, JosT Orozco and David Siqueiros, has provided the catalytic inspiration for schools of international art ostensibly unrelated to the Mexican experience per se - yet inextricably linked to the humanity underlying their works (Stefoff 116-117; Strickland & Boswell 157). Spaniard Pablo Picasso is rightly honored for his 1937 mural "Guernica"; its connections with Mexican works such as Orozco's 1932 "Epic of American Civilization" is impossible to deny (De La Croix, Taney & Kirkpatrick 1025-1026). In the 1960s Polish-American Andy Warhol rode high on a "Pop Art" style that made icons of the everyday and the everyday into a background of "art" for everyone (Strickland & Boswell 174-176); in the 1920s the Mexican Secretary of Public Education, JosT Vasconcelos, had already put muralists to making almost every public wall a background of da

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uses of the Indian population. A strong, land-owning hidalgo (noble) could override a single priest. A governor intent upon filling his coffers with silver (to which the Crown would be entitled to a sizeable share) rarely listened to a bishop's objections when it came to demanding that the "free" Indians contribute several months' labor a year to the mines. And so forth (Fehrenbach 204-209, 223-226). Simultaneous to these defeats, the missionaries were much more aggressive about ensuring the baptism of every single Amerindian under their "care." In this they had the egregious support of the conquerors: as the Indians had bowed to the politico-religious hierarchy of the Aztec, so, too, would they willingly accept their new Spanish overlords if whitewashed with a patina of religious significance (Chavez 19-20). Among the indigenous peoples, then, arts and rituals were devoted to the Church - or they were not tolerated at all, for fear of reviving "pagan" practices (or rebellion). This is a condensation of a century's development. Many of the early-arriving missionaries were devoted to preserving records of Amerindian art, ritual and language; schools and universities were established - with Indian participation expected. T
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Mexico City, World Amerindians, Mexican Revolution, Masked Days, Labyrinth Silence, La Croix, Indians Mexico, Frida Kahlo, Porfirio Dfaz, Maya Aztec, mexican revolution, octavio paz, 20th century, diego rivera, de la croix, la croix, frida kahlo, de la, indigenous peoples, mexican art, mexico city, education jost vasconcelos, public education jost, secretary public education, labyrinth solitude life,
Approximate Word count = 3813
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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