Hello, this is Christian Ward corresponding on an immense drawing I recently encountered at the City College of San Fransisco. Well this drawing was actually a fresco by Diego Rivera as part of several post-depression era, public commissions Rivera received in North America.

Fresco painting is when a artist applies a layer of stucco to a wall and proceeds to paint onto the wet stucco before it dries. I imagine the process is very nerve racking and labor intensive. This particular mural is called the Pan American Unity Mural and is easily 25 feet tall by 400 feet long. Rivera completed the mural in 1939.

The whole piece is sort of time and culture scramble of different figures from a whole range of cultures and histories.  As we move through the piece we are transported into different compartments or sections of the mural where figures act out different histories and positions in life and culture. The figures and scenery are drawn in what is called the socialist realism manner. Figures are drawn blocky in a way and seem very serious and heroic as well a powerful but mundane. Mostly earth tones in shades of brown grey and ochre ground the scene. High lights pull you in and out of the different compartments that make up the composition in shades of azure and turquoise. I would say the work follows a cubist and surrealist style as the obvious shifts in perspective and insinuations put the viewers mind into Utopian fantasies.

Diego Rivera Experienced the leftist revolutions of Mexico from 1911 - 20 and obviously was inspired to inject his art with an air of social relevance. It is obvious from the actions of the figures in the mural where indigenous and modern laborers toil together in harmony. The piece becomes educational when Rivera paints in the founding fathers, Lenin and various pre-Colombian gods. The piece seems to announce what is possible if modernity and antiquity are reconciled.

Personally I was drawn in by the murals size and subject matter. I found the work educational and relevant in 2014. I can't help but feel that the same themes exist today: cooperation and what is possible if a true multicultural harmony was in place. Pan American Unity Mural seems to offer progress in the form of social evolution.