Diego Rivera believed that art materialized when primitive communities began to show signs of humanity; pre-Columbian, African and European art are proof of this. Those ancestral works already contained all the elements needed to function as stimulants of aesthetic emotion that act upon the endocrine system. The painter affirms that art is linked to all those actions that fulfill man’s basic necessities: food, shelter and love. Rivera develops this idea by relating how art appeared in human activities, beginning with fishing and hunting, and continuing to war and religion. At the same time castes and classes began ruling these communities, he points out that they tried to control art so that it would serve those in power, a condition that continues to our current time. Rivera states that art is subversive and progressive because artists side with the oppressed classes. His understanding of art, just like all other human needs, was that it creates a superstructure; a culture that pours what it produces from the dome to the base of the structure, which in turn produces a renewal. These rise anew to the summit where modifications are done using these factors; this entices a truly organic circulatory movement. If those factors of change received by the apex of culture are progressive and revolutionary, the results will be nutritive and function as tonics. But if they are conservative, non-progressive or counterrevolutionary, they will amount to toxic narcotics that can result in moral conformity. This is how the state constructs an artistic and cultural apparatus that is under the control of the dominant class; that is, through those artists that create calming and toxic products to keep the masses satisfied but numb, which facilitates their exploitation. Although seeds of rebellion and progress also arise in the highest peaks; these form clandestine organizations within the apparatus of the state that foster the people’s energy to fight for their freedom. Rivera declares that there is not one nation on the Americas that does not keep the traditions of continental art alive in their contemporary production. This contributes to Pan-American unity and to the notion that—in conjunction with the planned industrialization supported by the United States—America will not perish beneath the rubble of the racist and oppressive world prone to slavery, but rather will lay the foundation for a new, better and free society.

The Colegio Nacional was founded in 1943 under the slogan “Libertad por el saber” [freedom of knowledge]; its purpose was to create a community of culture that would serve society and where all the schools of philosophical, artistic and scientific thought would be represented by the most distinguished people in the nation. Diego Rivera (1886–1957) and José Clemente Orozco (1883–1957) were invited to participate in the area of the visual arts. In July of that same year, Rivera began teaching his first course at the institution; it was entitled: “Necesidad del arte e importancia del mismo para la union de América” [The Importance and Necessity of Art for the Union of America].This article is the last of three texts that Rivera published based on the seminars he offered at the Colegio; his thesis was rooted in the idea that if America did not unite, it would perish. Because Rivera considered art to be a human biological need and a unifying factor for the Continent, he suggests it should be the unifying force because of its racial roots and its subversive and liberating nature.