Chapingo Autonomous University

Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (Chapingo Autonomous University) is an agricultural college located in Texcoco, Mexico State in Mexico. The university is a federally funded public institution of higher education. It offers technical and full bachelor's degrees as well as having scientific and technological research programs. Many of these programs are related to agriculture, forestry and fishing. The school began as the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (National School of Agriculture) which was founded in 1854 at the Monastery of San Jacinto in Mexico City. The school was moved in 1923 to the President Álvaro Obregón ex Hacienda of Chapingo, which was created by the Marques Francisco Antonio de Medina y Picazzo at the end of the 17th century, and had belonged to the Society of Jesus during the 18th century, until the religious order was expelled from Spanish territories. Postgraduate studies were added in 1959. The school received autonomous status in 1978. It offers courses of study in Forestry, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Industries, Irrigation, Rural Sociology and more. Muralism The main attraction for visitors at this school is its murals, especially the murals in the chapel by Diego Rivera. The room was an old hacienda chapel, but is now the University Ceremonies Room. This work was begun in 1924 and completed in 1927. Rivera painted 41 separate panels that cover the walls and ceiling of the room. The murals contain imagery relating to the revolutionary struggles of the peasants and working class of Mexico and the fertility and cycles of nature. Covering an area of over 700m2, the work divides into three parts. The left panels depict man's struggle to have land, the right panels show the evolution of Mother Nature and the center shows the communion between man and earth. The most prominent panel at the front of the room is titled Tierra Fecunda (translated Abundant Earth) and features a nude woman reclining in a landscape accompanied by the personifications of the natural forces of wind, water, and fire. Three smaller figures represent humanity who have created machines to harness natural energy. The murals on the south wall continue the theme of nature, showing cycles of germination, growth, and flowering. The murals on the north wall are devoted to images of revolution, suggesting that revolution follows similar natural cycles of germination, growth, and fruition.