A comprehensive survey discuses the genre's major subjects and issues, citing the works of such contributors as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Miguel Calder n while discussing how their achievements reflect current movements as well as the politics, society, and art of their periods. Original.

This compelling and comprehensive survey introduces an exceptionally rich, fascinating and complex art. Edward Lucie-Smith discusses major subjects and issues: Magic Realism, Expressionism and other concepts shared with Latin American literature; the great muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco; the interaction of politics, society and art; the continuing interest in folk art; and the dialogue between avant-garde European and North American movements and 'indigenist' thinking in the work of artists such as Wifredo Lam, Matta, Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo. In this revised edition, a new final section presents the leading artists of today, some of whose work in the fields of interactive installation, photography and video art reveals a continent embracing the experimental and the new.