The Pan American Unity mural at city college of San Francisco by Diego Rivera shows the comings of the South mixed with the North. The mural shows different periods of time and the great people who were involved in that time with the community. While walking into the theater where the mural is located, it is hard to get a good look of the whole mural. It is in a tight spot where you have to look at each panel to get a feel of what it's all about. They have a second floor where you can go up to take a better look at the mural as one. The second floor seemed to work best for me.
The mural shows how the world is transformed and seen over different period of times. It shows amazing people who have impacted the world in a positive way or negatively. But who have made a big difference in the world. I will summarize what I saw from my visit.
When I look at the mural I saw that it starts from the left side to the right. The first panel consists of México City. It was during the Aztec times. The top part shows the mountains and how the city was built during the Miso-America times. It has temples and shows religion in the mural. Where you see a priest giving a ceremony and to the right of that, is the tribe people dancing and playing their instruments which is a ritual they use to do for the Gods. It shows how in time religion has evolved.
Then it goes to the people working on figurines like the Olmec. Which shows they're carving skills. In the picture it also shows that they used bright and lucent colors like red, blue, and green as to many more to make the statues stand out. Then it goes to the late years of that period of time when they start doing things with tools like jewelry with gold. The one thing I liked from this panel the most was the left corner where it shows the Netzahualcoyotl, which was a poet, king, and inventor who made the flying machine which was similar to the bat that is under his feet as a model. It shows how talented he was and how created people were back then.
The second panel shows elements from the past to the present. It takes place from the 1700’s to 1920’s. At the top of that panel you see a lady diving into the clouds and you see the beautiful city of San Francisco. The lady is actually a national diving champion named Helen Crlenkovich, and the buildings shown are important because their lobbies are decorated with Mayan motifs. Then it shows an important Mexican sculptor, sculpturing the head of the serpent. To the right of that, Rivera paints in his assistant Mona Hofmann at a table looking up at the lady diving. The bottom part of this panel shows the craftsman’s of Mexico making pottery, baskets from weaving and sculptors. Then you see Rivera painting the liberty tree. It goes on to show Simon Bolivar, Miguel Hidalgo y Castillo, Morelos y Pavon, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and john brown who all where very important to their country from a priest of the revolutionary times to the president of United States.
The third panel is my favorite piece of the whole mural. It shows the creative power of the northern mechanism to the plastic tradition of the South. On the left side you see an Aztec god be combine to a god machine. It also shows a head which is half flesh and half bone resembling life and death. On the left bottom you see Frida Kahlo painting and to her right is Diego Rivera again holding hands with Paulette Goddard and the Mayan tree of life. Which I like a lot because it shows the root of life and how it keeps growing. Then you see kids sitting on the trunk of the tree, symbolizing generations to come and the mixture of the race. Lastly, you see the San Francisco architect who worked with Rivera on this mural, holding the plans of where exactly this mural would take place for people to view it.
Panel four shows a lot of women working. For example on top you see a woman swimmer, a lady in a business attire directing the men on the architecture and a woman painter. Which is amazing to see because during that time it was mainly men doing those type of jobs.
On the bottom portion of the panel you see a lot of aggression and darkness in the painting. You see an airplane getting attack and explosions all around it. Then theres a hand with the Hitler sign on it holding a knife, Hitler him self is present. You see Charlie Chaplin and many other actors of that time, portraying films like the Nazi spy. Lastly, a soldier from world war I is shown laying across barbed wires with a gas mask on.
The last panel is about the developing of the North. It shows the gold mining, industries and factories. You see how the people are at work looking for gold. You have a sense of how the mining changed life styles and improved them. What’s odd about the top part of this panel is that in the middle it shows a little girl with a lady who seems to be showing her how to write but everything else is about working. That part throws me off , but I guess Rivera wanted to include education in there. The bottom part shows industrial people who are important. For example, the founder of Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, the man who created the light bulb, Thomas Edison, and Samuel Morse who created the telegraph.
The mural has a lot of details that I’m sure I missed, but those seem to be the most important things that stood out to me. From reading the descriptions, it seems that Rivera's heart went all into this painting. If you guys like art like I do, you should check it out. Its located at the City College of San Francisco......
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