Occupy Movement

Rivera's mural captures what is going on with the occupy movement today. To me, The top painting shows the busy city of New York with the people in it going about their everyday lives who have jobs just like any other city, even San Francisco and Oakland. The middle painting is the one that can get a little depressing if you really can take a stab what the meaning can really be. People are jobless and are in economic turmoil. Where else can they sleep but in shelters or on the street? If you look at this painting you see not just a few bodies in a shelter but it is packed full of bodies of people resting. In the room there is a guard keeping watch which can symbolize a form of control over the people like the government who is in control of what seems like everything. Where as at the bottom of the painting, you see a bank with rich people investing their money in the bank when they could be helping by giving back to their community somehow. The people who are occupying the streets of New York, San Francisco, Oakland and many more are making a statement that is very similar to Rivera's mural because today there are people homeless and jobless like there was when the Great Depression took place. According to thegreatdepressioncauses.com, The unemployment rate in America had dropped from a high of 25% to 15%, largely due to the New Deal programs introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939. The Great Depression began in 1929 and ended in 1941 when America prepared to enter World War II. That's a great deal of time and I believe today's situation is very similar to the Great Depression back then if not worse. Rivera's mural is a perfect portrait painted for what is happening in the world today.