''Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central'' or ''Dream of a Sunday Afternoon at Alameda Central Park'' is a 15.6 meter wide

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

created by

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

. It was painted between the years 1946 and 1947, and is the principal work of the

Museo Mural Diego Rivera Museo Mural Diego Rivera is a museum in Mexico City where Diego Rivera's 1946–47 mural ''Sueño de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central'' is located. Location It is located at Balderas Avenue number 202, in the historic center of Mexico C ...

adjacent to the Alameda in the historic center of

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

History

The mural was originally created at the request of architect

Carlos Obregón Santacilia Carlos Obregón Santacilia (1896–1961) was a Mexican art déco architect. He trained at the Academy of San Carlos during the Mexican Revolution. He claimed a distinguished Mexican heritage, as great grandson of Benito Juárez and grand nephe ...

for the Versailles Restaurant of the Hotel Del Prado, which was located across the street. When the hotel was rendered uninhabitable in the

1985 Mexico City earthquake The 1985 Mexico City earthquake struck in the early morning of 19 September at 07:17:50 (CST) with a moment magnitude of 8.0 and a maximal Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''). The event caused serious damage to the Greater Mexico City area a ...

and condemned for demolition, the mural was restored and moved to its own museum.

Description

The mural depicts famous people and events in the

history of Mexico The written history of Mexico spans more than three millennia. First populated more than 13,000 years ago, central and southern Mexico (termed Mesoamerica) saw the rise and fall of complex indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous civilizations ...

, passing through the

Alameda Central Alameda Central is a public urban park in downtown Mexico City. Created in 1592, the Alameda Central is the oldest public park in the Americas. It is located in Cuauhtémoc borough, adjacent to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, between Juárez Avenue ...

park in Mexico City. Some notable figures include

Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...

José Guadalupe Posada José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political lithographer who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...

Francisco I. Madero Francisco Ignacio Madero González (; 30 October 1873 – 22 February 1913) was a Mexican businessman, revolutionary, writer and Public figure, statesman, who became the 37th president of Mexico from 1911 until he was deposed in Ten Tragic Da ...

Benito Juárez Benito Pablo Juárez García (; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Liberalism in Mexico, Mexican liberal politician and lawyer who served as the 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in office in 1872. As a Zapotec peoples, Zapo ...

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Sor may refer to: * Fernando Sor (1778–1839), Spanish guitarist and composer * Sor, Ariège, a French commune * SOR Libchavy, a Czech bus manufacturer * Sor, Azerbaijan, a village * Sor, Senegal, an offshore island * Sor River, a river in the Or ...

Porfirio Díaz José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...

Agustín de Iturbide Agustín de Iturbide (; 27 September 178319 July 1824), full name Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu and also known as Agustín of Mexico, was a Mexican army general and politician. During the Mexican War of Independence, he built a ...

Ignacio Manuel Altamirano Ignacio Manuel Altamirano Basilio (; 13 November 1834 – 13 February 1893) was a Mexican radical liberal writer, journalist, teacher and politician. He wrote ''Clemencia'' (1869), which is often considered to be the first modern Mexican novel. ...

Maximilian I of Mexico Maximilian I (german: Ferdinand Maximilian Josef Maria von Habsburg-Lothringen, link=no, es, Fernando Maximiliano José María de Habsburgo-Lorena, link=no; 6 July 1832 – 19 June 1867) was an Austrian archduke who reigned as the only Emperor ...

Juan de Zumárraga Juan de Zumárraga, OFM (1468 – June 3, 1548) was a Spanish Basque Franciscan prelate and the first Bishop of Mexico. He was also the region's first inquisitor. He wrote ''Doctrina breve'', the first book published in the Western Hemispher ...

Antonio López de Santa Anna Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (; 21 February 1794 – 21 June 1876),Callcott, Wilfred H., "Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez De,''Handbook of Texas Online'' Retrieved 18 April 2017. usually known as Santa Ann ...

Winfield Scott Winfield Scott (June 13, 1786May 29, 1866) was an American military commander and political candidate. He served as a general in the United States Army from 1814 to 1861, taking part in the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the early s ...

Victoriano Huerta José Victoriano Huerta Márquez (; 22 December 1854 – 13 January 1916) was a general in the Mexican Federal Army and 39th President of Mexico, who came to power by coup against the democratically elected government of Francisco I. Madero wit ...

José Martí José Julián Martí Pérez (; January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the libera ...

Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (; December 22, 1859 – February 3, 1895) was a Mexican writer and political figure. Biography Gutiérrez Nájera was born to catholic parents Manuel Gutiérrez Gómez (1818-1889) and Dolores Nájera y Huerta (1831-18 ...

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...

Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda (13 May 1865 – 8 July 1925) was a Mexican eccentric who was famous for being a perennial candidate in his country's presidential elections. Although he never won a significant share of the votes, he considered hi ...

, and

La Malinche Marina or Malintzin ( 1500 – 1529), more popularly known as La Malinche , a Nahua peoples , Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an in ...

. The central focus of the mural is on a display of bourgeois complacency and values shortly before the

Mexican Revolution of 1910 The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...

. Elegantly dressed upper-class figures promenade under the figure of the long ruling dictator Porfirio Díaz. An indigenous family is forced back by police batons and to the right flames and violence loom. To the far left, victims of the Inquisition, wearing the penitential sanbenito robes and the conical coroza hat, are consigned to the flames at an auto-da-fé. The center of the mural is dominated by the elegantly dressed skeleton

La Calavera Catrina ''La Calavera Catrina ''("Dapper Skull") or ''Catrina'' ''La Calavera Garbancera'' ("Elegant Skull") is a 1910–1913 zinc etching by the Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada. Originally a satirizat ...

holding arms with the Mexican graphic artist who first conceived and drew her,

in a black suit and cane. La Catrina wears a Feathered Serpent boa around her shoulders. On La Catrina's right she is holding hands with a child version of

in short pants. Rivera's wife

is standing just behind and between him and La Catrina; Kahlo has her hand on Rivera's shoulder and she is holding a

yin-yang Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and ya ...

device.

and Posada are staring directly into each other's eyes.

Controversy

Rivera originally painted the mural with Ignacio Ramírez holding a sign reading, "Dios no existe" ("God does not exist"). Rivera refused to remove the inscription, so the mural was not shown. Nine years later, Rivera agreed to remove the offending words, stating, 'To affirm "God does not exist", I do not have to hide behind Don Ignacio Ramírez; I am an atheist and I consider religions to be a form of collective

neurosis Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...

. I am not an enemy of the

Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, as I am not an enemy of the tuberculars, the myopic or the paralytics; you cannot be an enemy of the sick, only their good friend to help them cure themselves.'Philip Stein, ''Siqueiros: his life and works'' (International Publishers Co, 1994), , pp176

References

External links

Museo Mural Diego Rivera website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sueno de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central Murals in Mexico Paintings by Diego Rivera 1940s murals Arts in Mexico City Historic center of Mexico City Cultural depictions of Frida Kahlo Dogs in art Flags in art Horses in art Skulls in art