A
mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.
History
Murals of sorts date to
Upper PaleolithicThe Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
times such as the paintings in the
Chauvet CaveThe Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...
in
ArdècheArdèche is a department in south-central France named after the Ardèche River.- History :The area has been inhabited by humans at least since the Upper Paleolithic, as attested by the famous cave paintings at Chauvet Pont d'Arc. The plateau of the Ardeche River has extensive standing stones ,...
department of southern
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(around 30,000 BC). Many ancient murals have survived in Egyptian tombs (around 3150 BC), the
Minoan palacesThe Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
(Middle period III of the Neopalatial period, 1700-1600 BC) and in
PompeiiThe city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
(around 100 BC - AD 79).
In modern times, the term became more well-known with the
MexicanThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
"muralista" art movement (
Diego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
,
David SiqueirosJosé David Alfaro Siqueiros was a social realist painter, known for his large murals in fresco that helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance, together with works by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and also a member of the Mexican Communist Party who participated in an...
, or
José OrozcoJosé Clemente Orozco was a Mexican social realist painter, who specialized in bold murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others...
). There are many different
stylesIn the visual arts, style is a "...distinctive manner which permits the grouping of works into related categories." or "...any distinctive, and therefore recognizable, way in which an act is performed or an artifact made or ought to be performed and made." It refers to the visual appearance of a...
and techniques. The best-known is probably
frescoFresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
, which uses water-soluble paints with a damp lime wash, a rapid use of the resulting mixture over a large surface, and often in parts (but with a sense of the whole). The colors lighten as they dry. The
marouflageMarouflage is a technique for affixing a painted canvas to a wall to be used as a mural, using an adhesive that hardens as it dries such as plaster or cement....
method has also been used for millennia.
Murals today are painted in a variety of ways, using oil or water-based media. The styles can vary from abstract to
trompe-l'œil (a French term for "fool" or "trick the eye"). Initiated by the works of mural artists like
Graham RustGraham Rust, born in Hertfordshire, England in 1942, is an internationally renowned artist and muralist.-Life:Graham Redgrave-Rust was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1942. He studied drawing and painting at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art, the Central School of Arts and Crafts in...
or
Rainer Maria LatzkeRainer Maria Latzke is a German artist working in the field of trompe l'oeil and mural painting. He teaches at the Utah State University and is Founder of the Institute of Frescography in Logan, Utah. He also is Honorary Professor of the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art of Fudan University and...
in the 1980s, trompe-l'oeil painting has experienced a renaissance in private and public buildings in Europe.
Today, the beauty of a wall mural has become much more widely available with a technique whereby a painting or photographic image is transferred to poster paper or
canvasCanvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
which is then pasted to a wall surface
(see wallpaperWallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
, FrescographyFrescography is a method for producing murals digitally on paper, canvas, glass or tiles, invented 1998 by German muralist Rainer Maria Latzke...
) to give the effect of either a hand-painted mural or realistic scene.
Historical mural techniques
In the history of mural several methods have been used:
A FrescoFresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
painting, from the
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
word
affresco which derives from the adjective
fresco ("fresh"), describes a method, where the paint is applied on
plasterPlaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
on walls or ceilings.
The
Buon frescoBuon fresco is a fresco painting technique in which alkaline resistant pigments, ground in water, are applied to plaster when it is still wet, as opposed to fresco-secco...
technique consists of painting in
pigmentA pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...
mixed with
waterWater is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
on a thin layer of wet, fresh, lime mortar or
plasterPlaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
. The pigment is then absorbed by the wet plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries and reacts with the air: it is this chemical reaction which fixes the pigment particles in the plaster. After this the painting stays for a long time up to centuries in fresh and brilliant colors.
"
A SeccoSecco is a surname of Italian origin, which means dry. It may refer to:*Alessio Secco , Italian professional football manager*Deborah Secco , Brazilian actress*Louis Secco , Canadian Olympic ice hockey player...
" painting is done on dry plaster (
secco is "dry" in Italian). The pigments thus require a binding medium, such as
eggEggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
(
temperaTempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
), glue or
oilOil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
to attach the pigment to the wall.
"Mezzo-fresco", is painted on nearly-dry plaster, which is defined by the sixteenth-century author Ignazio Pozzo as “firm enough not to take a thumb-print”, so that the pigment only penetrates slightly into the plaster. By the end of the sixteenth century this had largely displaced the
buon fresco method, and was used by painters such as Gianbattista Tiepolo or
MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
. This technique had, in reduced form, the advantages of
a secco work.
Material
In Greco-Roman times, mostly
encausticEncaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used...
colors ground in a molten
beeswaxBeeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. It is mainly esters of fatty acids and various long chain alcohols...
or
resinResin in the most specific use of the term is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees. Resins are valued for their chemical properties and associated uses, such as the production of varnishes, adhesives, and food glazing agents; as an important source of raw materials...
binder and applied in a hot state was used.
TemperaTempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
painting is one of the oldest known methods in mural painting. In tempera, the pigments are bound in an albuminous medium such as
egg yolkAn egg yolk is a part of an egg which feeds the developing embryo. The egg yolk is suspended in the egg white by one or two spiral bands of tissue called the chalazae...
or
egg whiteEgg white is the common name for the clear liquid contained within an egg. In chickens it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms around either fertilized or unfertilized egg yolks...
diluted in water.
In 16th-century Europe,
oil paintingOil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
on canvas arose as an easier method for mural painting. The advantage was that the artwork could be completed in the artist’s studio and later transported to its destination and there attached to the wall or ceiling. Oil paint can be said to be the least satisfactory medium for murals because of its lack of brilliance in colour. Also the pigments are yellowed by the binder or are more easily affected by atmospheric conditions. The canvas itself is more subject to rapid deterioration then a plaster ground.
Modern mural techniques
Different muralists tend to become experts in their preferred medium and application, whether that be oil paints, emulsion or acrylic paints applied by brush, roller or airbrush/aerosols. Clients will often ask for a particular style and the artist may adjust to the appropriate technique.
A consultation usually leads to a detailed design and layout of the proposed mural with a price quote that the client approves before the muralist starts on the work. The area to be painted can be gridded to match the design allowing the image to be scaled accurately step by step. In some cases the design is projected straight onto the wall and traced with pencil before painting begins. Some muralists will paint directly without any prior sketching, preferring the spontaneous technique.
Once completed the mural can be given coats of varnish or protective acrylic glaze to protect the work from UV rays and surface damage.
As an alternative to a hand-painted or airbrushed mural, digitally printed murals can also be applied to surfaces. Already existing murals can be photographed and then be reproduced in near-to-original quality.
The disadvantages of pre-fabricated murals and decals are that they are often mass produced and lack the allure and exclusivity of an original artwork. They are often not fitted to the individual wall sizes of the client and their personal ideas or wishes can not be added to the mural as it progresses. The
FrescographyFrescography is a method for producing murals digitally on paper, canvas, glass or tiles, invented 1998 by German muralist Rainer Maria Latzke...
technique, a digital manufacturing method (CAM) invented by
Rainer Maria LatzkeRainer Maria Latzke is a German artist working in the field of trompe l'oeil and mural painting. He teaches at the Utah State University and is Founder of the Institute of Frescography in Logan, Utah. He also is Honorary Professor of the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art of Fudan University and...
addresses some of the personalisation and size restrictions.
Digital techniques are commonly used in advertisements. A "wallscape" is a large advertisement on or attached to the outside wall of a building. Wallscapes can be painted directly on the wall as a mural, or printed on vinyl and securely attached to the wall in the manner of a
billboardBillboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
. Although not strictly classed as murals, large scale printed media are often referred to as such. Advertising murals were traditionally painted onto buildings and shops by sign-writers, later as large scale poster billboards.
Significance of murals
Murals are important in that they bring art into the public sphere. Due to the size, cost, and work involved in creating a mural, muralists must often be commissioned by a sponsor. Often it is the local government or a business, but many murals have been paid for with grants of
patronagePatronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
. For artists, their work gets a wide audience who otherwise might not set foot in an art gallery. A city benefits by the beauty of a work of art.
Murals can be a relatively effective tool of social emancipation or achieving a political goal. Murals have sometimes been created against the law, or have been commissioned by local bars and coffeeshops. Often, the visual effects are an enticement to attract public attention to social issues.
State-sponsored public art expressions, particularly murals, are often used by totalitarian regimes as a tool of mass-control and propaganda. However, despite the propagandist character of that works, some of them still have an artistic value.
Murals can have a dramatic impact whether consciously or subconsciously on the attitudes of passers by, when they are added to areas where people live and work. It can also be argued that the presence of large, public murals can add aesthetic improvement to the daily lives of residents.
World-famous murals can be found in
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
,
PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
,
BelfastBelfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
,
DerryDerry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...
,
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
,
NicaraguaNicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
,
CubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
and in
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
http://rpmurals.home.att.net/ They have functioned as an important means of communication for members of socially, ethnically and racially divided communities in times of conflict. They also proved to be an effective tool in establishing a dialogue and hence solving the cleavage in the long run.
The
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n state
Keralaor Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
has exclusive murals. These Kerala mural painting are on walls of
HinduHindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
temples. They can be dated from 9th century AD.
The
San BartoloSan Bartolo is a small pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site located in the Department of Petén in northern Guatemala, northeast of Tikal and roughly fifty miles from the nearest settlement...
murals of the
Maya civilizationThe Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
in
GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, are the oldest example of this art in
MesoamericaMesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
and are dated at 300 BC.
Many rural towns have begun using murals to create tourist attractions in order to boost economic income.
Colquitt, GeorgiaColquitt is a city in Miller County, in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. The population was 1,939 at the 2000 census. Colquitt is the county seat of Miller County, a role it has held since just after Miller County was created by the Georgia Legislature in 1856...
is one such town. Colquitt was chosen to host the 2010 Global Mural Conference. The town has more than twelve murals completed, and will host the Conference along with
Dothan, AlabamaDothan is a city located in the southeastern corner of the US state of Alabama, situated approximately west of the Georgia state line and north of Florida. It is the seat of Houston County, with portions extending into nearby Dale County and Henry County...
, and
Blakely, GeorgiaBlakely is a town in Early County, Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,068. This town is the county seat of Early County.-Geography:Blakely is located at ....
. In the summer of 2010, Colquitt will begin work on their Icon Mural.
Murals and politics
The famous
Mexican muralMexican muralism is a Mexican art movement. The most important period of this movement took place primarily from the 1920s to the 1960s, though it exerted an influence on later generations of Mexican artists...
movement in the 1930s brought a new prominence to murals as a social and political tool.
Diego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
, José Orozco and David Siqueiros were the most famous artists of the movement. Between 1932 and 1940, Rivera also painted murals in San Francisco, Detroit, and
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In 1933 he completed a famous series of twenty-seven fresco panels entitled
Detroit IndustryDetroit Industry Murals are the frescoes by Mexican artist Diego Rivera. It is a series of twenty-seven panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company. Together they surround the Rivera Court in the Detroit Institute of Arts...
on the walls of an inner court at the
Detroit Institute of ArtsThe Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
. During the
McCarthyismMcCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
of the 1950s, a
large sign was placed in the courtyard defending the artistic merit of the murals while attacking his politics as "detestable."
In 1948 the Colombian Government hosted the IX Pan-American Conference to establish the
Marshall planThe Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
for the Americas. The director of the OEA and the Colombian government commissioned Master
Santiago Martinez DelgadoSantiago Martínez Delgado was a Colombian painter, sculptor, art historian and writer. He established a reputation as a prominent muralist during the 1940s and is also known for his watercolors, oil paintings, illustrations and woodcarvings....
, to paint a mural in the Colombian congress building to commemorate the event. Martinez decided to make it about the
Cúcuta CongressThe Congress of Cúcuta was a constituent assembly where Gran Colombia was created. The Congress elected Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander president and vice-president, respectively....
, and painted
BolívarSimón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...
in front of
SantanderFrancisco José de Paula Santander y Omaña , was a Colombian military and political leader during the 1810–1819 independence war of the United Provinces of New Granada...
, making liberals upset; so, due to the murder of Jorge Elieser Gaitan the mobs of el
bogotazoEl Bogotazo refers to the massive riots that followed the assassination in Bogotá, Colombia of Liberal leader and presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948 during the government of President Mariano Ospina Pérez...
tried to burn the capitol, but the Colombian Army stopped them. Years later, in the 1980s, with liberals in charge of the congress, they passed a resolution to turn the whole chamber in the Elliptic Room 90 degrees to put the main mural on the side and commissioned
Alejandro ObregonDaniel Alberto Alejandro María de la Santísima Trinidad Obregón Roses commonly known as Alejandro Obregón was a Colombian painter, muralist, sculptor and engraver.-Career:...
to paint a non-partisan mural in the surrealist style.
Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
contains some of the most famous political murals in the world. Many murals serve as a public service announcement of a special interest, notably for political topics such as sex, sexual orientation, religion and intolerance. Almost 2,000 murals have been documented in Northern Ireland since the 1970s. (See
Northern Irish muralsMurals in Northern Ireland have become symbols of Northern Ireland, depicting the region's past and present political and religious divisions.Northern Ireland contains arguably the most famous political murals. Almost 2,000 murals have been documented in Northern Ireland since the 1970s...
.)
A not political, but social related mural covers a wall in an old building, once a prison, at the top of a cliff in Bardiyah, in Libya. It was painted and signed by the artist on April 1942, weeks before his death on the first day of the
First Battle of El AlameinThe First Battle of El Alamein was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought between Axis forces of the Panzer Army Africa commanded by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and Allied forces The First Battle of El Alamein (1–27 July 1942) was a battle of the Western Desert...
. Known as the
Bardia MuralThe Bardia Mural was created in a building on a clifftop overlooking the bay in Bardia, Libya, during World War II by John Frederick Brill just prior to his death at the age of 22. It depicts a collage of images that range from the horrors of war shown by skulls to the memories of home, shown by...
, it was created by English artist, Private
John Frederick BrillJohn Frederick Brill was an English soldier and painter who created the Bardia Mural. A photograph of John Brill painting his mother can be found here. On 1 July 1942, the Axis launched an attack with the target being the capture of Alexandria, which was to become known as the First battle of El...
.
In 1961 East Germany began to erect a wall between East and
West BerlinWest Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
, which became famous as the
Berlin WallThe Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
. While on the East Berlin side painting was not allowed, artists painted on the Western side of the Wall from the 80s until the fall of the Wall in 1989.
Many unknown but also known artists such as
Thierry NoirThierry Noir is the man who contributed to the longest concrete painting in the world, the Berlin Wall. His paintings, with their bright colors and their melancholy poetry, survived longer than all the others did after the fall of the wall in 1989.-Life:...
and
Keith HaringKeith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
painted on the Wall, the “World's longest
canvasCanvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
”. The sometimes detailed artwork were often painted over within hours or days. On the Western side the Wall was not protected, so everybody could paint on the Wall. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the Eastern side of the Wall became also a popular “canvas” for many mural and
graffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
artists.
Murals in contemporary interior design
Traditional murals
Many people like to express their individuality by commissioning an artist to paint a mural in their home, this is not an activity exclusively for owners of large houses. A mural artist is only limited by the fee and therefore the time spent on the painting; dictating the level of detail; a simple mural can be added to the smallest of walls.
Private commissions can be for dining rooms, bathrooms, living rooms or, as is often the case- children's bedrooms. A child's room can be transformed into the 'fantasy world' of a
forestA forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
or racing track, encouraging imaginative play and an awareness of art.
The current trend for feature walls has increased commissions for muralists in the UK. A large hand-painted mural can be designed on a specific theme, incorporate personal images and elements and may be altered during the course of painting it. The personal interaction between client and muralist is often a unique experience for an individual not usually involved in the arts.
Public commissions of murals in schools, hospitals and retirement homes can achieve
a pleasing and welcoming atmosphere in these caring institutions.
In the 1980s, illusionary wall painting experienced a renaissance in private homes. The reason for this revival in interior design could, in some cases be attributed to the reduction in living space for the individual. Faux architectural features as well as natural scenery and views can have the effect of 'opening out' the walls. Densely built up areas of housing may also contribute to people's feelings of being cut off from nature in its free form. A mural commission of this sort may be an attempt by some people to re-establish a balance with nature.
Graffiti style murals
Recently,
graffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
and street art have played a key role in contemporary wall painting. Such graffiti/street artists as
Keith HaringKeith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
,
Shepard FaireyFrank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His...
,
Mint&SerfOriginally a graffiti crew founded in Staten Island around late 1994/5 by Daer and Class and later passed on in 1996 to CH One . 1134nyc is formerly an art collective based in Brooklyn NYC. Originally comprising collective of artists and designers including MINT & SERF , GOAL, HEILS, VYELS, KEVS...
,
Futura 2000Futura 2000 is a graffiti artist. He started to paint illegally on New York's subway in the early seventies, working with other artists such as ALI. In the early eighties he showed with Patti Astor at the Fun Gallery, along with Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Hambleton and Kenny Scharf...
,
Os GemeosOs Gêmeos are graffiti artist identical twin brothers from São Paulo, Brazil, whose real names are Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo. They started painting graffiti in 1987 and gradually became a main influence in the local scene, helping to define Brazil's own style...
, and Faile among others have successfully transcended their street art aesthetic beyond the walls of urban landscape and onto walls of private and corporate clients.
As graffiti/street art became more main stream in the late 1990s, youth oriented brands such as Nike, Red Bull and Wieden Kennedy have turned to graffiti/street artists to decorate walls of their respective offices. This trend continued through 2000's with graffiti/street art gaining more recognition from art institutions worldwide.
Tile mural
Tile murals tile paintings, which cover complete walls and give a wall painting-like impression. Tile murals are typically found in countries around the Mediterranean Sea such as
MoroccoMorocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
,
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and Arabic countries, in
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
mostly in an often monochrom-colored form, the
AzulejoAzulejo from the Arabic word Zellige زليج is a form of Portuguese or Spanish painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tilework. They have become a typical aspect of Portuguese culture, having been produced without interruption for five centuries...
.
The Azulejo (ɐzuˈleʒu, aθuˈlexo) refers to a typical form of
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
or
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
painted,
tin-glazedTin-glazing is the process of giving ceramic items a tin-based glaze which is white, glossy and opaque, normally applied to red or buff earthenware. The opacity and whiteness of tin glaze make it valued by its ability to decorate with colour....
,
ceramicA ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
tileA tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
work. They have become a typical aspect of
Portuguese cultureThe culture of Portugal is the result of a complex flow of different civilizations during the past Millennia. From prehistoric cultures, to its Pre-Roman civilizations , passing through its contacts with the Phoenician-Carthaginian world, the Roman period , the...
, manifesting without interruption during five centuries the consecutive trends in art.
Azulejos can be found inside and outside churches,
palaceA palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word itself is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills in Rome. In many parts of Europe, the...
s, ordinary houses and even
train stationA train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...
s or subway stations.
They were not only used as an
ornamental artIn architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
form, but also had a specific functional capacity like
temperature controlTemperature control is a process in which change of temperature of a space is measured or otherwise detected, and the passage of heat energy into or out of the space is adjusted to achieve a desired average temperature....
at homes. Many azulejos chronicle major historical and cultural aspects of Portuguese history.
Today several companies create custom tile murals using dye sublimation as well as other processes for commercial and residential spaces. Images in Tile, USA is an example of a large scale mural manufacturer.
Notable muralists
- Carlos Almaraz
Carlos Almaraz was a Mexican-American artist and an early proponent of the Chicano street arts movement.-Childhood and education:...
- Judy Baca
Judith Francisca Baca is an American artist, activist, and University of California, Los Angeles professor of fine arts...
- Banksy
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique...
- Arnold Belkin
Arnold Belkin was a Mexican painter and mural artist. Born in Canada, he moved to Mexico to be closer to the Mexican artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Siquerios. In the '50s he befriended the latter, collaborating with him on two murals in Mexico City...
- Freydoon Rassouli
Rassouli is an Iranian-Born, American abstract surrealist painter. He was raised in a home decorated with murals and intricate floral designs. Inspired and encouraged by an uncle, he began painting and learning poetry from early age...
- Thomas Hart Benton
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
- John T. Biggers
John Thomas Biggers was an African American muralist who came to prominence after the Harlem Renaissance and toward the end of World War II. Dr...
- Henry Bird
thumb|220px|right|[[Conversion of St Paul]], a mural by Henry Bird painted in 1973, in [[Denton, Northamptonshire|St Margaret's Church, Denton]]Henry Bird was a British artist from Northampton who painted murals and female nudes. He went to the Royal College of Art and then designed sets at the...
- Edwin Howland Blashfield
- Steve Bogdanoff
Steve Bogdanoff is an American artist who is internationally known for originating a technique for creating fresco secco-style artworks. Bogdanoff is also recognized for his skill in creating self-produced limited-edition giclée prints, and has the distinction of being selected out of all of the...
- Giotto di Bondone
Giotto di Bondone , better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late Middle Ages...
- Gabriel Bracho
Gabriel Bracho was a Venezuelan artist born in Los Puertos de Altagracia on 25 May 1915. He and Cesar Rengifo were major exponents of the social realism artistic movement in Venezuela...
- Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus was an American artist. He is best known for his paintings and drawings of nude male figures. His works combined elements of eroticism and social critique to produce a style often called magic realism...
- Eleanor Coen
Eleanor Coen established her art career during the great depression. In the Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Project she and her husband Max Kahn helped forge a tradition of twentieth century color lithography and painting. She was born in 1916 in Normal, Illinois...
- John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas...
- Robert Dafford
-Life and work:Robert Dafford is a current resident of Lafayette, Louisiana. Dafford has painted over 300 murals across the United States, Canada, France, Belgium, and England. He has been painting murals, signs and fine art paintings for 35 years...
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Santiago Martinez DelgadoSantiago Martínez Delgado was a Colombian painter, sculptor, art historian and writer. He established a reputation as a prominent muralist during the 1940s and is also known for his watercolors, oil paintings, illustrations and woodcarvings....
Faile
Shepard FaireyFrank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His...
SadequainSyed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi , Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, Pride of Performance, Sitara-e-Imtiaz, also often referred to as Sadequain Naqqash, was a world-renowned Pakistani artist, best known for his skills as a calligrapher and a painter...
Piero della FrancescaPiero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
Os GemeosOs Gêmeos are graffiti artist identical twin brothers from São Paulo, Brazil, whose real names are Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo. They started painting graffiti in 1987 and gradually became a main influence in the local scene, helping to define Brazil's own style...
Richard HaasRichard John Haas is an American muralist who is best known for architectural murals and his use of the Trompe l'oeil style.-Works:...
Keith HaringKeith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
Albert Henry KrehbielAlbert Henry Krehbiel , was an American artist who was born in Denmark, Iowa and who taught, lived and worked for many years in Chicago. Although educated as a realist in Paris, which is reflected in his neoclassical mural works, soon developed a strong appreciation for impressionism and is mainly...
Rainer Maria LatzkeRainer Maria Latzke is a German artist working in the field of trompe l'oeil and mural painting. He teaches at the Utah State University and is Founder of the Institute of Frescography in Logan, Utah. He also is Honorary Professor of the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art of Fudan University and...
Michelle LougheryMichelle Loughery is an internationally acclaimed muralist from British Columbia, Canada.-Early career:Michelle was born in the community of Michel-Natal in the Elk Valley in southeastern British Columbia, but her family was relocated to the nearby mining town of Sparwood when the community of...
Tom LeaThomas Calloway "Tom" Lea, III was a noted American muralist, illustrator, artist, war correspondent, novelist, and historian....
Michael MacaulayMichael John Macaulay is a former South African cricketer who played in one Test in 1965.-References:...
Sofia MaldonadoSofia Maldonado is a Puerto Rican visual artist who lives and works in New York City. She is especially well known for her dramatic graffiti-inspired murals of women, which are closely associated to a feminist Caribbean hip hop aesthetic. Her work has garnered enormous controversy due to its...
John Anton Mallin |
Andrea MantegnaAndrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
Reginald MarshReginald Marsh was an American painter, born in Paris, most notable for his depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Crowded Coney Island beach scenes, popular entertainments such as vaudeville and burlesque, women, and jobless men on the Bowery are subjects that reappear...
Knox MartinKnox Martin is an American painter, sculptor and muralist.Born in 1923 in Barranquilla, Colombia, he studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1946 till 1950. He is one of the leading members of New York School - a group of artists and writers. He lives and works in New York City."Art is...
Peter MaxPeter Max is a German-born Jewish American artist. At first, works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms all across America. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise...
MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
Claude MonetClaude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
Roberto MontenegroRoberto Montenegro Nervo was a Mexican painter, illustrator, and stage designer....
Frank NuderscherFrank Bernard Nuderscher was an American illustrator, muralist, and painter of the American Impressionism style. He was called the "dean of St. Louis artists" for his leadership in the Missouri art community....
Aarón Piña MoraAarón Piña Mora was a Mexican painter and muralist.He was born in Metztitlan in the state of Hidalgo, and moved with his family, at an early age, to Mexico City. From 1930 to 1933 he attended the School of Drawing and Sculpture of the Plastic Arts at the Public Education Secretariat...
Juan O'GormanJuan O'Gorman was a Mexican painter and architect.-Biography:O'Gorman was born in Coyoacán, then a village to the south of Mexico City and now a borough of the Federal District, to an Irish father, Cecil Crawford O'Gorman and a Mexican mother...
José Clemente OrozcoJosé Clemente Orozco was a Mexican social realist painter, who specialized in bold murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others...
Michael Kirby (artist)Michael Kirby is a street artist who was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. His work has been featured and exhibited across the world for governments, cities, museums, and corporations.-Biography:...
Diego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
Archie RandArchie Rand is an artist from Brooklyn, New York. Rand's work as a painter and muralist is displayed around the world, including in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale de...
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
Graham RustGraham Rust, born in Hertfordshire, England in 1942, is an internationally renowned artist and muralist.-Life:Graham Redgrave-Rust was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1942. He studied drawing and painting at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art, the Central School of Arts and Crafts in...
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Conrad Schmitt Young Conrad Schmitt was twelve years old when his family’s church in Fussville, Wisconsin was decorated for the first time, in 1879. Watching skilled artists transform the space with paints and stencils, he realized that this was his calling...
David Alfaro SiqueirosJosé David Alfaro Siqueiros was a social realist painter, known for his large murals in fresco that helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance, together with works by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and also a member of the Mexican Communist Party who participated in an...
Frank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
Rufino TamayoRufino Tamayo was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico. Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, painting figurative abstraction with surrealist influences....
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
Alton TobeyAlton Stanley Tobey , the American artist, was a painter, historical artist, muralist, portraitist, illustrator, and teacher of art.-Biography:...
Kent TwitchellKent Twitchell is an American muralist who is most active in Los Angeles. He is most famous for his larger-than-life mural portraits, often of celebrities and artists. His murals are realism not photorealism according to Twitchell.-Biography:Twitchell's father was Robert Twitchell who was a farmer...
Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
John Augustus WalkerJohn Augustus Walker 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.-Early life:...
Henry Oliver WalkerHenry Oliver Walker was an American painter of figures and portraits best known for his mural decorations. His works include a series of paintings honoring various poets for the Library of Congress and decorations for public buildings such as the Appellate Court House in New York City, Bowdoin...
Lucia WileySr. Lucia Wiley was a noted WPA muralist and painter born and raised in Tillamook, Oregon. Her work appears in several U.S. Post Offices, and at the University of Oregon at Eugene.-External links: ***...
Robert WylandRobert Wyland , known simply as Wyland, is an artist best known for painting large, outdoor murals of whales and other ocean life.-Personal life:...
Isaiah ZagarIsaiah Zagar is a Philadelphia mosaic artist. He is notable for his murals which are primarily in or around Philadelphia's South Street.-Early life:Zagar received his Bachelor of Art from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York City...
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See also
- Anamorphosis
Anamorphosis or anamorphism may refer to any of the following:*Anamorphosis, in art, the representation of an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflection in a mirror...
- Bogside Artists
The Bogside Artists are a trio of mural painters from Derry, Northern Ireland, consisting of Tom Kelly, his brother William Kelly, and Kevin Hasson...
- Brixton murals
The Brixton murals are a series of murals by local artists in the Brixton area, in London, UK. Most of the murals were funded by Lambeth London Borough Council and the Greater London Council after the Brixton riots in 1981....
- Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
- Marouflage
Marouflage is a technique for affixing a painted canvas to a wall to be used as a mural, using an adhesive that hardens as it dries such as plaster or cement....
- Murals of Kerala, India
- Newtown area graffiti and street art
Since the 1980s, the area around the historic inner Sydney suburb of Newtown, NSW -- including the suburbs of Newtown, Enmore, Erskineville, Camperdown and St Peters -- has had works of graffiti and street art placed on local walls....
- Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
- Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
- Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
- Tiled printing
Tiled printing is a method that computer programs use to enable users to print images larger than a standard page, recently popularized by a program called The Rasterbator. A tiled printing program overlays a grid on the printed image in which each cell is the size of a printed page and then...
- Trompe-l'œil
Further reading
- Tarantino, A (2011): Seattle Street Art - A Visual Time Capsule Beyond Graffiti, Createspace, ISBN 061545190X
External links