Starlight And Sunlight

The Mexican government is often as generous to its artists as were the city-states of Renaissance Florence and Venice. Mexico's Big Three --David Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and the late Jose Orozco -have covered acres of wall space with murals commissioned by the state. A fourth native son of genius, Rufino Tamayo, was long kept out in the cold by his colleagues, because his art smacked of Paris and his politics failed to partake of Marx. Wallflower Tamayo was only recently invited to paint a muralin Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts. His response has the muted, starlight luminosity typical of all his work. Says Tamayo guardedly; "I am picturing exican nationality, vigorous and mature, constructing things."

Siqueiros' latest mural, painted in the rounded corner of a new hospital, is more explicit: an injured worker under the rays of a health-giving sun. Siqueiros' effects are sometimes not much subtler than a punch in the eye. But as long as exico's artists can keep delivering such knockouts, the Mexican government is likely to keep right on paying for them.

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