From the Porfiriato to the Revolution
David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 to 1974) · 1957 to 1966
The largest mural in the castle wraps around an entire room and tells the story of how the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz collapsed into the Revolution of 1910. On one side you see the old regime: Díaz himself enthroned among his generals and cabinet, surrounded by dancing women and the wealthy elite of the belle époque. On the opposite walls the ground gives way to the strikers of Cananea and Río Blanco, the peasants of Emiliano Zapata, and a surging crowd of workers, soldiers and revolutionaries who seem to push out of the picture towards you.
Siqueiros was the most technically restless of the three great Mexican muralists. Here he used industrial pyroxylin paints and a surface that bends and curves so that the figures appear to move as you walk. Notice how the crowd on the right is painted with foreshortening so extreme that arms and rifles project out of the wall, and how the composition is designed to be seen from the doorway and then to change as you turn. The colour scheme shifts from the golden, decadent tones of the Díaz court to the reds and steely greys of revolt.
The mural has a dramatic history of its own. Siqueiros began it in 1957, but in 1960 he was imprisoned for four years for political agitation and worked on the project in his cell through sketches and models. He finished the wall in 1966, after his release. The result is a summary of his whole career, combining the militant politics of his youth with the sweeping dynamism of his late style. Look for the self portrait he slipped among the revolutionary crowd, and for the fallen Zapata and Madero who anchor the story's turning point.
Did You Know? Siqueiros painted part of this mural after serving four years in Lecumberri prison for his political activities, planning the composition from his cell.
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