*there are many links throughout, so be sure to check them out.
The Faces of Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) is widely known as one of the tres grandes of the Mexican mural movement. Siqueiros and many others consider his work a political and revolutionary tool whose concepts could not be separated from the aesthetic aspect. Throughout his oeuvre there is a continuum of subjects with noticeably non-descript facial features. There are a few exceptions to his technique, most notably with figures from Mexican history. Beginning with his early works and continuing through his murals from the last years of his life, the faces of his subjects are uniform and rather expressionless, in what appears to be a statement about humanity. Through a brief discussion of his technique and with closer examination of several of Siqueiros’ key works this paper will demonstrate his adherence to this artistic principle for the duration his lifetime.
Two works each from his early period, Campesino, Obrero, Soldado (Fig 1) and Ethnography (Fig 2), two from the middle of his oeuvre, The People for the University. The University for the People. (Fig 3) and The People in Arms (Fig 4), and one piece from his late period, The March of Humanity on Earth and Toward the Cosmos (Fig 5 & 6), are concrete examples of the surreal, anonymous characteristics of his subjects. In the works I will examine, the consistency of method is quite pronounced. The only information Siqueiros gives us comes in the form of dress and situational surroundings of the character(s). Many of those portrayed are iconographic in nature and Siqueiros fills the works with the large volume of the subject in almost every case. It is fascinating that he manages to accomplish so much with a face that says so little. Quite often we think of faces as being the necessary vehicle of emotion; these works effortlessly defy that rationale.
Figure 1
From his earliest works, Campesino, Obrero, Soldado and Ethnography both have subjects with cartoonishly generalized features. The three equivalent figures in Campesino, Obrero, Soldado (1924) have what appears to be the same face and same figure with different dress. This, along with their hand-in-hand gesture presents them as a singular political unit with the same wants and needs. Siqueiros notes that the unavoidable “…problem was to express [oneself] with a figurative art capable of saying things which were important to our people.” Using these faces of uniformity may have presented a way of making the important things applicable to everyone. This work was created for the artistic-revolutionary journal El Machete that featured many artists who often took no credit for their works or writings. The group of artists dedicated to the cause of El Machete was a rather unique historical phenomenon that forcefully put into action a weighty social ideology.Figure 2
Ethnography (1939) features a huge figure that towers over the piece who wears a pre-Columbian mask. This gesture may be the pinnacle of facelessness, since we are unable to discern any of the true facial features of the subject. His subject fills the frame wholly, and the man is clad in the rural, white cotton or linen garb the artist associated with indigenismo. Siqueiros placed an equal importance on his work as an artist and his political activism. Through his use of native symbolism and subject matter we can sense the import the artist placed on such grand representations of native culture. This is one of the most striking pieces by Siqueiros in my opinion, I feel he is saying a great deal about the people of Mexico and their struggles in a powerful way.
Figure 3
During the 1950s he painted more works in this vein, notably The People for the University. The University for the People. and From the Dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz to the Revolution - The People in Arms. With his huge mosaic entitled The People for the University. The University for the People.(1952-6) Siqueiros intended to make a national experience one that was ‘universally valid.’ Perhaps his usage of the mosaic technique was a metaphor for the anonymity and uniformity of humanity as a whole. The five people depicted in the mosaic have the same hair and facial features, alongside similar gestures. The eyes and eyebrow arcs of all four front-facing figures are indistinguishable.
Figure 4
The People in Arms (1957-65) is one of the most obvious examples of Siqueiros’ use of comparable facial features as an important part of his work and beliefs. It is a part of his 4500 square foot mural in the National History Museum that describes the Revolution of 1910. The mural features a mass of armed men and a few women bearing forward, heavily toward the viewer as revolutionary soldiers; all seem to hold the same stance and wear roughly the same uniform. Apart from moustaches on a few of the men, the faces are strikingly similar. Even the women are only distinguishable as such because of their dress. As the faces and hats blend into each other in the background they become even more surreal in their consistency. They meld into a mass of sombreros and rifles united againstPorfirio Díaz, the agreed-upon villain of the time, and his Porfiriato.
Figure 5
From his later years, the grand mural The March of Humanity (1971) depicts some subjects with black circles for faces, the ultimate in facelessness. This mural became his largest work, exceeding 50,000 square feet. Such a massive undertaking, professor and art historian Leonard Folgarait refers to the work as “…not only a work of art, but also as a symbol and carrier of Mexican political ideology.” The massive mural encompasses the entire Polyforum Siqueiros, interior as well as exterior. Part of the interior portion features recognizable human beings with dehumanized features.
Figure 6
Portions of the exterior take this cohesion of humanity and facelessness to a new level, where many of the figures have only black circles where their faces should be. Siqueiros used this blurring of form and technique to emphasize the mass communication purpose of the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros. The building is only a building because it has certain architectural characteristics; mostly it serves as a permanent structure to showcase this momentous work. The mural is often seen as being reflective of the time in which it was created, although Siqueiros intended it to transcend the moment and the country in which it was created; being somewhat stronger in rhetoric than in analysis of reality. Throughout the work, around the building, the figures meld into and out of humanness; their facial features continuously characterless.
The works of David Alfaro Siqueiros use subjects with facial features that have little if any reference to a non-fictional person. The artist creates a blending-together of his people, which indicates his belief of humanity as a singly immense, interwoven unit with similar lives and goals. His work succeeds in conveying an emotion and purpose without the conventional use of facial expression or characteristics. His mastery of technique is evident in the care and detail in the lack of detail where he intends it. His convictions and beliefs about humanity seem to be so strong that they were persistent and evident in his technique spanning his career. When criticized by a newspaper reporter about his presentation of the problems of humanity, Siqueiros replied, “Paint what you wish, or permit me to paint what I wish. Leave me alone, en libertad.” In freedom, indeed.
Here are my sources for this essay:
Ades, Dawn. Art in Latin America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
Azuela, Alicia. “El Machete and Frente a Frente: Art Committed to Social Justice in Mexico.” Art Journal 52 (Spring, 1993): 82-7.
Campbell, Bruce. Mexican Murals in Times of Crisis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003.
Derr, Virginia B. “The Rise of a Middle-Class Tradition in Mexican Art.” Journal of Inter-American Studies 3 (July, 1961): 385-409.
Folgarait, Leonard. So Far from Heaven: David Alfaro Siqueiros’ ‘The March of Humanity’ and Mexican Revolutionary Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Goldman, Shifra M. “Siqueiros and Three Early Murals in Los Angeles.” Art Journal 33 (Summer, 1997): 321-27.
King, John. Review of So Far from Heaven: David Alfaro Siqueiros’ ‘The March of Humanity’ and Mexican Revolutionary Politics, by Leonard Folgarait. Journal of Latin American Studies 21 (October, 1989): 610-11.
Kline, Herbert, Gertrude Ross Marks, Edmund F. Penney, Ricardo Montalbán and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Walls of fire: The story of Los Tres Grandes. Produced and directed by Herbert Kline et al. 81 minutes. Mentor Productions, 1971. Videocassette.
Rochfort, Desmond. Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993.
Siqueiros, David Alfaro. Iconografía de David Alfaro Siqueiros. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1997.
Siqueiros, David Alfaro. Lectures to Artists. Chicago, Illinois: New University Thought, 1962.
Shorris, Earl. The Life and Times of Mexico. New York: WW Norton and Company, 2004.
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