Tag: mural

Edwin Austin Abbey

Edwin Austin Abbey, “Sir Gahahad Becomes King of Sarras”, Panel from “The Quest and Achievement of the Holy Grail”, 1895-1902, Mural with Fifteen Panels, Abbey Room, Boton Public Library

Edwin Austin Abbey was an American muralist, illustrator and painter He flourished at the beginning of the golden age of illustration. Abbey is best knwon for his drawings and paintings of Victorian and Shakespearean subjects. His most famous set of murals was his work “The Quest and Achievement of the Holy Grail”, which adorns the walls of the Boston Public Library.

Edwin Austin Abbey was a young, highly regarded illustrator for “Harper’s Monthly” magazine, but had never completed any work in oil paint when he was approached for the mural commission. In 1890, Abbey and John Singer Sargent dined with Charles Follen McKim, Stanford White, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens in New York, where architect McKim convinced him to consider painting a mural cycle in the Boston Public Library’s Book Delivery Room.

Upon visiting the library during its construction with McKim, Abbey agreed to undertake the project and signed a contract to complete the work for $15,000 in 1893. Abbey selected a subject of “legendary romance” in The Quest for the Holy Grail, basing his work upon Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s version of the Arthurian tale. It took Abbey eleven years to complete al the murals for the project.

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera, “The Maize Festival”, 1923-1924, Fresco Mural, Secretariat of Public Education Main Headquarters, Mexico City, Mexico.

The Maize Festiaval mural was painted on the south wall of the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico City. It was part of a series of paintings done between 1923 and 1928 by Diego Rivera in his first major large-scale mural project.

The themes center around workers, and the glorification of all things Mexican, especially the Mexican Revolution. Rivera named the two courtyards “Labor Courtyard” and the other the “Fiesta Courtyard” based on the themes he painted in each. Because he was affiliated with the Communist Party at the time, Rivera painted small hammers and sickles next to his signature on the panels in this building.

Reblogged with thanks to https://artist-rivera.tumblr.com

John Augustus Walker

John Augustus Walker, “Science and Invention”, Mural, 1935

John Augustus Walker (1901-1967) was a well-known Alabama Gulf Coast artist of the Depression era who was commissioned to undertake several art projects for the Works Progress Administration. Walker’s preferred subject matter ranged from Mardi Gras, fantasy and historical themes to landscapes and portraiture.

The murals are on display in the History Museum of Mobile lobby located in Mobile, Alabama.

Jose Maria Sert

Jose Maria Sert: Details of Lobby Murals of Rockefeller Center, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City

Like the surrounding complex, the art at 30 Rockefeller Plaza has a rich history. A committee set up by John D. Rockefeller and his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr., decided that the artworks there should have a unifying theme, New Frontiers, encompassing aspects of a modern society: science, labor, education, travel, communication, humanitarianism, finance and spirituality. Because 30 Rockefeller Plaza, near the Channel Gardens, where the Christmas tree stands every year, was considered the center’s flagship, it was to be the most elaborately decorated.

The dramatic ceiling mural depicts heroic-sized, Titans who symbolize the three aspects of time: Past, Present and Future. By exposing their bodies and making them muscular, Jose Maria Sert implies that time is both part of nature and is powerful. The Titans are portrayed evaluating man’s achievements, with the mural integrating the architecture into the subject matter—both the scales and the Titans’ feet are shown resting on actual marble columns that support the lobby ceiling, creating a panoramic vision of the weighing of man’s deeds.

If you are in New York City, this should be on your list to see.

Cacaxtia’s Venus Temple

Detail of Battle Mural in Cacaxtia’s Venus Temple

Cacaxtla is the name of a Late Classic to Epiclassic (AD 600-900) city in the Puebla Valley, Tlaxcala, Mexico. It was a sprawling palace containing vibrantly colored murals painted in unmistakable Maya style. The nearby site of Xochitecatl was a more public ceremonial complex associated with Cacaxtla. Cacaxtla and Xochitecatl prospered 650-900 CE, probably controlling important trade routes through the region with an enclave population of no more than 10,000  Olmeca-Xicalanca people.

The most famous of Cacaxtla’s preserved paintings is the “Battle Mural”, or Mural de la Batalla, located in the northern plaza of the basamento. Dating from prior to 700, it is placed on the sloping limestone wall of a temple base and is split in two by a central staircase. It depicts two groups of warriors locked in battle: on the one side are jaguar warriors, armed with spears, obsidian knives, and round shields, who are locked in battle with an army of bird warriors (some of whom are shown naked and in various stages of dismemberment).

Aryz and Os Gemeos

Aryz and Os Gemeos, Title Unknown, Mural on Building, Lodz, Poland

Aryz and Os Gemeos painted a collaborative mural in Lodz, Poland for the Urban Forms Festival. Pairing Aryz, the young street artist from Spain, with the experience of the Os Gemeos twins has certainly paid off as the resulting mural is pretty awesome with OsG’s character coming out of the building in some sort of embrace with Aryz’s skeletal beauty.

Duncan Grant: The Saint Blaise Chapel Murals

Duncan Grant, Mural, Detail of the West Wall, St Blaise Chapel, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England

Duncan Grant, born from Scottish aristocratic roots, was an influential artist of the early 20th century, conscientious objector in the First World War and member of the Bloomsbury Group, whose attitudes towards feminism, pacifism and sexuality brought them great notoriety. Though homosexual, he had a daughter, Angelica, by his 40-year largely platonic relationship with Vanessa Bell (sister of Virginia Woolf), and had several notable lovers including Bloomsbury set fellows, the economist John Maynard Keynes and writer David Garnett. His later life was spent with another Bloomsbury associate, poet and translator of the classics, Paul Roche.

The mural paintings in The Russell Chantry, St.Blaise Chapel in St.Mary’s Cathedral are dedicated to St.Blaise, patron Saint of wool workers and depict a fanciful quayside scene in 15th century Lincoln. They were painted in 1958, when Grant was in his early seventies and were embroiled in controversy from the start. His initial designs were amended, and his open homosexuality and history as a conscientious objector were frowned upon in the early post-war years.

The Chapel was kept locked from around 1964 to 1977 when the first colour Cathedral guidebook made no mention of the murals. The chapel continued to be locked and used as a storeroom with cupboards against the walls covering the murals until 1990. Some people objected to the near nudity of the figure of Christ, modelled on Grant’s homosexual lover Paul Roche and the athletic young porters loading bales of wool on the quayside. Even today, some Cathedral guides omit the St.Blaise Chapel and Grant’s marvellous murals from their tour.

Diego Rivera

Sketches and Finished Murals by Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera made large preparatory drawings, which served as drafts for the final murals.. Placed alongside the panels they inspired, the exuberant charcoal sketches he called “cartoons” reveal how Rivera translated his broad strokes into the final scenes.

Diego Rivera had some success as a Cubist painter in Europe, but the course of world events would strongly change the style and subject of his work. Inspired by the political ideals of the Mexican Revolution (1914-15) and the Russian Revolution (1917), Rivera wanted to make art that reflected the lives of the working class and native peoples of Mexico. He developed an interest in making murals during a trip to Italy, finding inspiration in the Renaissance frescos there.

Returning to Mexico, Rivera began to express his artistic ideas about Mexico. He received funding from the government to create a series of murals about the country’s people and its history on the walls of public buildings. In 1922, Rivera completed the first of the murals at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in Mexico City.