A review in which Edward Lucie-Smith discusses major subjects and issues such as Magic Realism, Expressionism and other concepts shared with Latin American literature; the great muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozc; the interaction of politics, society and art; the continuing interest in folk art; and the dialogue between avant-garde European and North American movements and "indigenist" thinking in the styles of artists such as Wifredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo. Many other artists are covered - including a large number of women, from the 1900s to the present day - in this introduction to a great body of original and imaginative work.