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Atlanta Georgia Artist Corey Barksdale large scale wall mural art.

Murals of sorts date to prehistoric times, such as the paintings on the Caves of Lascaux in southern France, and many ancient murals have survived in Egyptian tombs, and in Pompeii. The term became more famous with the Mexican “muralista” art movement (Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, or José Orozco). There are many different styles and techniques. The best-known is probably fresco, which uses water soluble paints with a damp lime wash, a rapid use of the resulting mixture over a large surface, and often in parts (but with a sense of the whole). The colors lighten as they dry. The marouflage method has also been used for millennia.
Murals today are painted in a variety of ways, using oil or water based media. The styles can vary from abstract to trompe-l’œil (a French term for “fool” or “trick the eye”). Today, the beauty of a wall mural has become much more widely available with a technique whereby a painting or photographic image is transferred to poster paper which is then pasted to a wall surface to give the effect of either a hand-painted mural or realistic scene.

Mural at the American British Cowdray Hospital in México D.F. by Veronica Ruiz de Velasco in 1989.
Murals are important in that they bring art into the public sphere. Due to the size, cost, and work involved in creating a mural, muralists must often be commissioned by a sponsor. Often it is the local government or a business, but many murals have been paid for with grants of patronage. For artists, their work gets a wide audience that otherwise might not set foot in an art gallery. For the city, it gets beautified by a work of art. Murals exist where people live and work and affect their daily lives.
Murals can be a relatively effective tool of social emancipation or achieving a political goal. Murals have sometimes been created against the law or have been commissioned by local bars and coffeeshops. Often, the visual effects are an enticement to attract public attention to social issues.
World famous murals can be found in Mexico, New York, Philadelphia, Belfast, Derry, Los Angeles, Nicaragua, Cuba and in India. [1] and have functioned as an important means of communication for members of socially, ethnically and racially divided communities in times of conflict. They also proved to be an effective tool in establishing a dialogue and hence solving the cleavage in the long run. State-sponsored public art expressions, particularly murals, are often used by totalitarian regimes as a tool of mass-control and propaganda. However, despite the propagandist character of that works, some of them still have an artistic value.

Many people like to express their individuality by commissioning an artist to paint a mural in their home, this is not an activity exclusively for owners of large houses. A mural artist is only limited by the fee and therefore the time spent on the painting; dictating the level of detail; a simple mural can be added to the smallest of walls.
Private commissions can be for dining rooms, bathrooms, living rooms or, as is often the case- children’s bedrooms. A child’s room can be transformed into the ‘fantasy world’ of a forest or racing track, encouraging imaginative play and an awareness of art.

Southern art is a broad term that applies to art of, about, and from the American South. The Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans houses the largest single collection of Southern art. In 1992, the Morris Museum opened in Augusta, Georgia, with a focus on Mid-Twentieth Century American Southern art.

Southern art refers to the sum of the work of artists who have lived in the American South. The core of the American South consists of the eleven states that formed the Confederate States of America: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Beyond these eleven states, there is some dispute as to which of the following six states should also be included: Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The city of Washington, D.C. is a special case. Though it was not part of the Confederate States of America, it is usually grouped as part of the American South.
Of these six “border” states, Delaware and Oklahoma probably have the weakest claim to be included in the American South. Though a slave-holding state until the end of the American Civil War, Delaware never seceded, and today is culturally closer to the urban Mid-Atlantic states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Oklahoma was a sparsely populated territory at the time of the Civil War, and though it contributed a regiment to the Confederate Army, it never was home to the kind of plantation life typical of the American South.
In 1975, Southern Arts Federation (SAF) was founded with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to support and promote arts and culture in the Southeast.

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