page_title: Indigenismo in Mexico
section_title: Indigenismo in Mexican  art and literature
hierarchical_section_title: Indigenismo in Mexico / Post-Revolutionary Indigenismo / Indigenismo in Mexican  art and literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Mexico City - Palacio Nacional. Mural by Diego Rivera showing the life in Aztec times, i.e., the city of Tenochtitlan.
context_page_description: Indigenismo is a Latin American nationalist political ideology that began in the late nineteenth century and persisted throughout the twentieth that attempted to construct the role of indigenous populations in the nation-state. The ideology was particularly influential in Mexico where it shaped the majority of indigenous-state relations since its incorporation into the Constitution in 1917. While the perspectives and methods of Indigenistas changed and adapted over time, the defining features of Mexican Indigenismo are the implementation by primarily non-indigenous actors, the celebration of indigenous culture as a part of the nation's history, and the attempt to integrate indigenous populations under the authority of the nation-state. The ideology was enacted by a number of policies, institutions, governmental programs, and through artistic expression. These included education programs, land reform, political reform, and economic development as well as national displays of indigenous heritage.
context_section_description: Both Gamio and Vasconcelos, along with other indigenistas, saw creating national artistic and cultural production as essential to creating a national identity and used the romantic image of Indigenity in creating a national culture through state sponsored art production starting in 1920 until 1940. Manuel Gamio argued that Mexican artists' inspiration should be derived from ancient Indigenous aesthetics, from the Aztec in particular.
  
  During the Revolution, indigenous images were used as official nationalist symbols and after the revolution the government continued to use indigenous symbols to establish the roots of Mexican culture and identity within the physical nation state Vasconcelos was appointed to be head of the cultural development program under Obregón, and began to commission artists to create national artwork supported by the revolutionary government, specifically focused on large public works that were visible and accessible to the people in order to solidify the national identity.  Artists who contributed to this movement include Diego Rivera, Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Much of this expansive artistic production was done if the form of murals on public buildings. Rivera alone created at least 124 murals over 8 years, including murals on Nacional Palace of Mexico, the Cortes Palace in Cuernavaca and the National School of Agriculture. These images very often depicted indigenous figures and symbols as a celebration of pre-colonial Mexico. 
  In the view of Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, a Mexican anthropologist, while indigenous people were often depicted as a symbol of national pride and cultural heritage, they were depicted as relics of the past with little recognition of existing indigenous groups. The aspects of indigeneity that were depicted were selectively chosen as those most appealing such as the calm, campesino life and traditional crafts, dance, and popular folklore. Rivera's first mural under Vasconcelos' commission, titled Creation, is described by Rivera as a racial history of Mexico and demonstrates the cultural hierarchy present in the Indigenismo ideology as the primitive looking indigenous figures look up to the enlightened European figures who have come to save them from their misery with education. Even while these artists helped create the mestizo identity, they often created images that displayed ideas and images of indigenous peoples that conflicted with the goals of the nationalist government.
   
  After 1940, muralism was less emphasized as a means to create national identity. However, different forms of  art and culture production were still used to form and shape national identity such as music, crafts, architecture, and literature, and still incorporated aspects of a romanticized indigenous heritage. Another way indigenous heritage was celebrated and publicly displayed was through museums. The largest and best known project is the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City constructed in 1964 to house the extensive national collection of indigenous cultural artifacts. The museum displays and celebrates Mexico's precolonial past and Indigenous roots. Critics of Indigenismo have commented on how the museum is structured around primarily Aztec exhibits and artifacts, while the exhibits dedicated to existing indigenous groups in Mexico are positioned to the side and are often overlooked by visitors. They have also noted that the language used in the Museum places the greatness and achievements of indigenous people in the past.
  The creation of Aztec literature as an academic field was spearheaded by Ángel María Garibay K., a Mexican linguist and translator of Nahuatl and Spanish texts of the prehispanic and colonial eras, and gave scholarly standing to the native literature of Mexico.  Garibay and his student Miguel León-Portilla published works by Aztec poets written down in the colonial era as alphabetic texts.  As the Mexican government supported expressions indigenismo, the establishment of Nahuatl literature with scholarly standing has been seen an integral part of that national
caption: Mural by Diego Rivera showing the pre-Columbian Aztec city of Tenochtitlán. Muralists depicted indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations with idyllic model characteristics as socially, spiritually and morally advanced societies and culturally superior than the Spanish as a way to promote an indigenist nationalism.
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