Mural is a picture or design on a wall or ceiling. Many murals decorate interiors of buildings. Others are used as exterior ornament, often relating to the architecture they decorate. Murals can alter a viewer’s perception of space by creating illusionary (non-existent) openings in walls and ceilings, or by making space appear more confining. Many murals are public art, meant to be seen and understood by a broad audience.
Artists have used several techniques to create murals, including fresco, encaustic, tempera, oil painting, and enamel or ceramic on metal. Sometimes, artists paint on a canvas that is later attached to a wall in a technique called marouflage. Some murals, called mosaics, are designs composed of pieces of glass, stone, or other material.
The mural is one of the oldest art forms. Prehistoric people decorated caves with murals of animals. Ancient Egyptians painted murals with flat, linear images. Greeks and Romans decorated walls with pictures of gardens, buildings, gods, and heroes. Many of the greatest European murals were created during the Renaissance, a cultural movement that began during the early 1300’s and ended about 1600. The Italian artist Giotto revolutionized mural painting in the early 1300’s with his dramatic and realistic Biblical scenes. In the 1400’s and 1500’s, such Italian artists as Andrea Mantegna , Masaccio , Piero della Francesca , Raphael , and Michelangelo created many historically significant murals. Among the most notable murals were Michelangelo’s frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. Baroque and rococo artists of the 1600’s and 1700’s drew on Renaissance techniques to paint murals that made walls and ceilings seem to dissolve into space.
Mural art declined during the 1800’s. However, at the end of the century, French painter Puvis de Chavannes and American John La Farge revived the art form. Murals gained popularity in Mexico during the 1920’s when José Clemente Orozco , Diego Rivera , and David Siqueiros created murals depicting Mexican legends and history. In the 1930’s and early 1940’s, the U.S. government sponsored over 2,000 murals in public buildings by such artists as Thomas Hart Benton, Reginald Marsh , and Ben Shahn . Since the 1960’s, many artists have painted murals to draw attention to poverty, racism, and other social and political issues, thus permitting murals to serve as propaganda art.
During the late 1900’s and early 2000’s, artists have used murals as a way to transform the urban landscape. Such murals frequently appear in public spaces, such as airports, subway stations, and lobbies of buildings. Important modern mural artists have included Keith Haring and Shephard Fairey in the United States and Banksy in the United Kingdom.
