'Working for an Audience' - Unit 12 - Mural History (Research)

There have been murals on walls throughout the world  for as long as there have been people on Earth.  People scratched them, carved them, etched them and painted them.  The history of murals and mural painting is rich and varied, from the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, France, to the celebratory and ceremonial murals of ancient Egypt, Rome, Mesopotamia, Greece and India.

According to art historians, mural painting dates back at least 30,000 years to cave paintings.   (Other historians credit the Minoans and the Etruscans.)  Some of these impressive works have been preserved, thankfully, by the very caves which they inhabit.   These ancient murals typically depict the activities of a particular civilization‘s people, encapsulating a moment in time, and range from scenes of hunting, gathering, and family life, to religious and funerary scenes.

An interesting evolution continues in the world of murals.  New ones are continually being commissioned and created while old ones are constantly being rediscovered and restored (i.e. ca. 100 AD  Mayan wall paintings at the remote ruins of El Petén and San Bartolo in Guatemala, which were discovered fairly recently in March 2001).

The purpose of murals varies from culture to culture, and from time period to time period.  Several examples follow.  Many murals in the Tibetan world, both ancient and contemporary, are created as part of meditative and reflective Buddhist practices.  During the Baroque period in France, Germany and England, rich art patrons and royalty had Biblical and allegorical murals painted on the ceilings and of their luxurious homes and palaces. Patrons often had themselves painted into the mural, as a way of capturing their likenesses for all time.

Mural art appears on the walls and ceilings of interior and exterior spaces, ranging from palaces, temples, and tombs, to museums, libraries, churches, and other public buildings. In our more contemporary era, murals have found their way onto a large variety of surfaces. 

An important point to finish this section with: Good mural artists will consider their mural in relation to the mural's natural or architectural setting, allowing the piece to become an aesthetic, social, and most importantly, cultural, artefact.

Worth noting...Murals date to Upper Palaeolithic times, such as the paintings in the Chevaux Cave in Ardeche (southern France) around 30.000 BC.  Ancient murals have also survived in Egyptian tombs circa 3150 BC, the Minoan palaces from the Neopalatial period circa  1700-1600 BC, and in Pompeii circa 100 BC to 79 CE (AD).   These ancient murals were ‘painted’ with whatever materials, always natural, were available at the time.

from:http://www.jonssonsworld.com/A_Brief_History_of_Murals_and_Mural_Painting.html