This is a review of the lecture given by David Alfaro Siqueiros—“La pintura mexicana moderna y el arte para la victoria”—at the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes) in Lima. It was billed as an explanation of the “true nature of the painting movement” in Mexico associated with intellectuals who support democracy. In the speaker’s opinion, the 1910 revolution put an end to “the routine reflection of European painting” and seeped “into the Escuela de Bellas Artes where it changed everything.” The brief triumphal moment enjoyed by Francisco I Madero (1911–13) ushered in the plein air school method and an increased appreciation for traditional art. Siqueiros provides a detailed description of the rediscovery of the Renaissance fresco technique and talks about the debate over muralism (relationships with the revolutionary press and printing sector). He proclaims “the convenient collaboration between state and artists” while advocating the preeminence of public or collective art, endorsing these “major forms” over the “minor forms” he considers superficial and fleeting. Siqueiros rejects any intimist solution for Latin American art, which he describes as being eager for “new forms, new concepts.”    

In 1943, the influential Mexican painter and muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974) visited Lima as part of a trip to several Latin American capital cities designed to drum up support among local artists and intellectuals for the allied cause during the Second World War. On March 22, he gave a lecture at the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes), sponsored by its director, the painter José Sabogal (1888–1956), the founder and leader of the Peruvian indigenist school. In his talk, Siqueiros described the so-called “Mexican painting school” which, in his opinion, represented the convergence of a renewal in the visual arts and a political commitment that used the potent expressive power of muralism. The war in Europe was therefore a reason to use the Mexican experience as a way to respond to the common enemy of fascism. It is interesting to note that the local press published very few reviews of Siqueiros’s lecture; but his charismatic presence attracted a great deal of attention in the Lima art world. Some years later, a number of his statements were collected by the critic Luis Fernández Prada (1917–1973), one of the major opponents of indigenism at the ENBA. It should be noted that against the backdrop of the fight against fascism, there was no immediate debate or discussion in response to the lecture by the Mexican muralist.    

[See the ICAA digital archive for more documents written by Siqueiros abroad: “Actos y conferencias: El pintor D. A. Siqueiros disertó en la Escuela de Bellas Artes anoche” (anonymous) (doc. no. 1143245); his illuminating manifesto presented in Barcelona in 1921, “3 llamamientos de orientación actual a los pintores y escultores de la nueva generación americana” (doc. no. 801659); and, as a parameter of disappointment, in the 1960s, “A quienes lucharon por mi libertad con mi más profundo reconocimiento” (doc. no. 751235); among many others].