Talking walls at The Painting Center

Maine writes about the history of painted walls: “For much of its history, the activity of painting was enacted on the wall. From the chambers at Knossos to the villas and municipal structures of Rome, from medieval and Renaissance ecclesiastical architecture to Baroque courts and palaces the mural was a primary vehicle for pictorial space, the wall the substrate of choice for public-scale allegorical figuration both secular and sacred. The tradition continued with vigor through the 20th century in the work of the great Mexican painters and the American artists employed under the Works Progress Administration. Recent and current practitioners such as Sol LeWitt, David Tremlett and Richard Wright have developed non-figurative, non-narrative approaches.”