More Art!

The condo we are staying in is not far from the oldest park in Mexico City, Parque Alameda. It has paths meandering through the trees and beautiful fountains. However, there are no wide open spaces and all the vegetation is behind two-foot fences so people don’t walk on the grass. It reminds me of parks in Paris. All kinds of people had set up shop today, selling food, movies, crafts, clothing and more.

We walked through the park on our way to the Museo Nacional de Arte, the fine art museum in the city. The museum is housed in a neoclassical palacio and contains paintings by Mexican artists from 16th until the 20th century.

Rafael was enraptured by a painting of a man about to be decapitated. We could barely pull him away. The more recent works include several by Diego Rivera, as well as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Juan Clemente Orozco. Great stuff!

The painting on the top left is the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is hugely iconic in Mexico. This image of her is seen everywhere.

After lunch we headed to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the performing arts center. The building itself is magnificent. The interior is Art Deco with beautiful purple marble columns all over the place. Peace Bear got to check out Bellas Artes, too!

The interior also contains murals by Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco and Rufino Tamayo (you can see part of one of Tamayo’s murals on the left). Not surprisingly, the kids were getting a little tired of walking, so Selso and I took turns walking around while the kids sat in front of Rivera’s busy mural, Man, Controller of the Universe, and played I Spy. Pretty cool.

Selso went to another museum – a small one with just a few of Rivera’s works – while I took the kids back to the condo for some much needed relaxing and another dip in the pool.

Mexico City's Zocalo

We are enjoying the sunshine and warmer temperatures here, along with the food. Today we headed to the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main plaza. Along one side of the Zocalo is the Catedral Metropolitana and perpendicular to it is the Palacio Nacional, both of which we visited today.

The Zocalo is in the foreground and the Catedral in the background.

The Catedral Metropolitana is the largest church in Latin America and was built over the course of more than 240 years. It is a spectacular combination of architecture – the whole of which is definitely greater than its parts.

The Palacio Nacional houses the Mexican president’s offices, as well as those of the Finance Ministry, and was formerly home to the Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes. It was also home to many Mexican presidents, including Benito Juarez, who died here.

The Palacio contains a small museum about Benito Juarez and includes a tour through some of the rooms he and his family inhabited. However, the main attraction is the murals by Diego Rivera. Diego Rivera, who painted during the early to mid-1900s, is arguably Mexico’s greatest artist. My pictures cannot possibly do justice to his murals, which encompass Mexico’s history, with special emphasis on the native peoples’ – mostly the Aztec.

Seeing Diego Rivera's work will undoubtedly go down as one of the highlights of our trip, since Selso and I have both been longtime fans of his work. Luckily, Mexico City is awash in Rivera murals, and tomorrow we will see some more.