Liberation of the Peon & The Rural School Teacher

Liberation of the Peon

Rural School Teacher (The New School)

• Diego  Rivera and a team of artists worked to create a mural around framework and doors. 
• The mural spanned between windows, offices, doors and many other boundaries found in the building. 
• Many visual information was painted in a balanced manner. 

(Telluric: relationship between culture and the landscape/nature.)

• gold sands where emphasized in both murals as well as sharp mountains. 

• In Liberation of the Peon: the peon has been liberated through death.
• Rivera used the same symbols as in the Deposition of Christ in the mural. 
• It was organized by Rivera by adding religious context. 
• It emphasizes the same concept as in the Deposition of Christ. 
• The pose constructs the peon as a martyr. 
• The painting has simplified figures. 
• The straw hats emphasize halos as in the deposition of Christ. 
• Makes the figures in the mural look like angels or holy beings pertinent to Mexico.
• Horses taken from Renaissance perspective & carefully arranged and completed.
• The meaning in the Liberation of the Peon is intensified by the mural's perspective. 
• idea of crucified Christ by all the wound marks on the body.
• the figures are emphasized as NOT religious martyrs but revolutionary ones. 

Rivera used the same theme for a mural at the MOMA. 

The Rural School Teacher (La Maestra Rural)

• Diego Rivera's conception of land and earth.
• image represents what was seen in photographs.
• figure on horse- a rural worker
• female figure teacher sitting and lecturing the agricultural workers: women + children.
• emphasized as the importance of literacy & education

Diego Rivera's style was emphasized in the murals because of the figure's round shapes, well trained landscape representation and obvious knowledge in art history. 

Rivera, Weavers, 1923-24

• rhythm of threads
• careful arrangement of what we might see in a photograph
• communal activity/process
• painting emphasizes clarity of activities