Draft 2- of assignment #3

Diego Rivera Pan American Unity Mural

Diego Rivera was a womanizer, revolutionist and honored the working class. He was born in Mexico but studied in Europe where he became renowned for his paintings. He was then invited to join the “Art In Action Program” hosted by the 1940 season of the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in San Francisco by Timothy Pflueger, who was a well- known architect. Timothy wanted Diego’s mural to be incorporated in the San Francisco Junior College Library; however, construction of the library was halted due to United States entry into World War II and Pflueger’s unexpected death. During this time Diego was part of the Mexican Muralist Movement and the Pan American Unity mural was the perfect opportunity to intertwine social realism and ancestral art. Currently this mural is housed at the Diego Rivera Theater at City College of San Francisco.

The “Pan American Unity” is a fresco mural representing all of America—North America versus South America. The murals colors are all earthy tones. Diego makes his own paint through traditional natural pigments. Diego painted the South using more vibrant and traditional Latin colors creating a warmth feel. The North is painted with an industrial look and cold feeling. Diego painted the Golden Gate Bridge in the top right corner signifying a bridge between two cultures (North and South), possibly San Francisco a neutral meeting place. The mural is constructed in five panels that went from left to right.

I felt the most powerful panel is the middle panel or panel number three. On the left side of the central figure is the Aztec goddess Coatlicue. She is the goddess of life, death and earth. For the Aztecs she was “Lady of the Serpent Skirt,” goddess of all life, gods as well as humans, animate as well as inanimate (Rivera, 151). Coatlicue has her right hand fully extended in the air with four jade calluses representing wealth. Coatlicue believes when you work with the soil or earth you are wealthy she also depicts the South. The other half of this central figure is a auto plant-stamping machine, which most likely belongs to the Ford Motors Company. This unifying image represents the union of the North and South America, machine and plastic arts. At the bottom of the panel Frida Kahlo his wife and Mexican artist has a paint brush and palette in hand ready to work on a new portrait maybe depicting her passion for of the plastic arts. Behind Frida is Diego with Charlie Chaplin’s wife, Paulette Goddard planting the “tree of life” showing the closeness of Pan Americanism. Possibly even depicting his love affair with Paulette behind Frida’s back or Diego getting even with Frida for her affair with Trotsky. Above them is a wooden carving of a ram, which is the San Francisco City College’s mascot. On the bottom right corner of the panel Diego painted Timothy Pflueger. Timothy has his blue prints of the San Francisco City College Library in hand that was never built due to his sudden death.

The first panel’s theme “The Creative Genius of the South Growing form Religious Fervor and the Native Talent for Plastic Expression”. This panel shows the beginning of Mexico City and how it was derived with the high mountains and volcanoes. Quetzalcoatl a high priest is in the upper left hand corner teaching the Indians. The Indians are utilizing the earth by making their own gold jewelry, sculpting, carving, and painting. There is a portrait of Nezahualcoyotl, the king of Texcoco, bottom left hand corner; it looks like he is trying to make wings to fly. There is a deer dancer at the top right corner of the panel. A feather serpent is coming out of their hut and crossing the land. The serpent’s head, which is made of stone, lands into panel two. The cross reference to this Panel is Panel five, “ The Creative Culture of the North Developing from the Necessity of Making Life Possible in a New and empty Land” it appears the top part of this panel is displaying the gold mining era. There are oil wells, a guy farming for new crop and the bottom half of this panel is Henry Ford and bottom left hand corner, Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb, Robert Fulton engineer of the first successful steamboat and an artist painting a wooden cigar Indian. This panel definitely represents ideology development in the north and the utilization of mother earth for natural resources.

Panel two begins the incorporation of the “Past and Present” which is cross referenced with panel four “Trends of Creative Effort in the United States, The Rise of Woman in Various Fields of Creative Endeavor Through her Use of the Power of Manmade Machinery”. At the top of Panel two it has Helen Crlenkovich a national diving champion doing a back flip in air above the bay bridge possibly during the worldfair with spectators watching her, while artisans are sculpting the serpent head. Marking what was happening at that present moment. While at the bottom of panel represents the past, in the background is the Liberty Tree and in front are the founders of independence that represents both north and South America, fighting for equality and against slavery at that same time period. At the bottom left corner of panel is the back of Diego painting a fresco mural and behind him are the local artisans creating their artwork. At the top of Panel four is a picture of Alcatraz Island and Treasure Island. Diego paints Emmy Lou Packard, his assistant and next to her is Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous architect and a little girl. There is a wooden sculptor carving a figurehead that looks like it would be made for a ship. There is a woman doing a back flip above everyone while a couple female fellow swimmers are watching and next to them is a women in a suit with blue prints possibly an architect. This upper panel definitely acknowledges the rise of women. The bottom half of this panel has the image of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini all leaders in dictatorship. Charlie Chaplin is below them who created the film “ The Great Dictator” at the time of World War II. I believe this was symbolic in representing two different styles of leadership: totalitarian dictatorship that was occurring in Europe versus the belief system of liberty in America.

Diego had a conversation with Dorothy Puccinelli in reference to his main purpose for this mural which is stated as follows “I believe in order to make an American art, a real American art, (it) will be necessary (to have) this blending of the art of the Indian, the Mexican, the Eskimo, with the kind of urge which makes the machine, the invention in the material side of life, which is also the artistic urge—the same urge primarily but in a different form of expression.” Hence, I believe Diego did convey his message on the Pan American Unity Mural, in which he paid homage to both the ancestral side and machine side and all the working class people. Diego illustrated this by comparing the times in his mural North versus South America. The unification of the ancestral side and machine side are both forms of art and progression that represent “All of America”.