Chile con Siqueiros

One of the finest and most furious sets of murals ever painted in the Western Hemisphere was on view last week in the little city of Chilian (pop. 34,000) in Chile. An earthquake, an assassination, a jailbreak and a flight into exile had all conspired to produce them.

Death for the Invader--At each end of a spacious hall in the Escuela Republica de Mexico stood a volcanic panel in which huge figures, with muscles gleaming like polished automobile fenders, strove and squirmed in apocalyptic combat. In the north panel, symbolizing the history of Mexico, a many-armed, many-legged, colossal bowman, representing the Aztec hero Cuauhtemoc, bestrode the prostrate body of a Spanish invader, while such heroes as Hidalgo, Morelos, Juarez, Zapata and Lazaro Cardenas looked appreciatively on.

The south panel (see cut) gave a Marxist-eye-view of the history of Chile. It was dominated by a gigantic figure of the Araucanian Indian chief Galvarino, roaring and waving the stumps of his handless arms (mutilated by the Spaniards) over a group of prone Spanish soldiers, like a mad maestro leading an infernal symphony. Over his shoulders glared the faces of Revolutionists Francisco Bilbao (with beard) and Araucanian Chief Caupolican (with one blind eye). Behind them, clutching a Chilean flag, swayed the small figure of Chile's liberator, Bernardo O'Higgins. The two panels were connected by a broad ceilingful of abstract designs. Title of the whole: Death for the Invader!

By extremely odd coincidence, this roof-blowing work formed the decor of a quiet library reading room.

The man who had gone to Chile to paint the murals, green-eyed David Alfaro Siqueiros, considered them his greatest work. A famed Mexican artist and Marxist firebrand, for the past 20 years, he has been making himself a double reputation.

Public Artist. When, three years ago, Chilian came tumbling down in one of the worst earthquakes in South American history, Lazaro Cardenas, then President of Mexico, offered to build its harassed citizens a school. His successor, President Avila Camacho, decided to add murals. This thought occurred usefully to President Camacho at a time when he had a good muralist very much on his hands.

After a career of rioting and street fighting that culminated in the shooting up of a Mexico City police station, Siqueiros had landed in jail, charged with complicity in an attempted assassination of Leon Trotsky. Mexican artists and leftists, led by potent little Vicente Lombardo

Toledano of the Confederation de Trabajadores Mexicanos, were crying aloud for Siqueiros' release. It seemed a good time to get the riotous artist out of the country.

So one day Firebrand Siqueiros walked out of jail, was given a passport and money. In Chile he was again arrested, again released. Back in Mexico the police still officially wanted Exile Siqueiros. The Mexican Government was meanwhile paying him handsomely for his Chilian job.

Whether the eruptive scenes he had painted were the proper stuff to soothe Chilean children at their library tables; whether Chile's Government, in an anti-Marxist mood, might some day take a cue from Mexico's, and board them up, remained for the future to decide. One of Siqueiros' most famous murals, The Burial of a Worker, in Mexico City's National Preparatory School, has been hidden behind a board fence ever since 1925.

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