Art Trails of Mexico

Art Trails explores the rich heritage of Mexican art. 

The great pre – Hispanic civilizations such as the Maya and the Aztecs built elaborate temples and decorated them with complex and colourful sculpture and art. 

After the Spanish conquest art embraced a heavily religious tone reflecting the deep faith of the Catholic church and zealous missionaries bent on converting the indigenous population. 

After the War of Independence which last from

1810-1823, and the turbulence of the 19th century, which included a civil war and five foreign invasions, Mexican art entered a dark age.

After the Mexican Revolution, art was used as a nation building and political tool by post-revolutionary Governments bent on forging a New Mexican identity.

Mexican Muralism was born, and its most famous exponent was Diego Rivera, who with his wife and partner, Frida Kahlo, electrified the international art world. For a time, Kahlo was the world’s most famous woman artist and Rivera’s giant murals re told the Mexican story in a new light. Today Mexican art and architecture remains as colourful, vibrant, and ground-breaking as ever with modernist architects like Luis Barragan capturing global attention and Mexico City once again a destination for captivating and imaginative ideas in the world of art.