Glenn Beck needs to take some more art history classes, if he wants to pretend to know what he’s talking about.

I do not have time to go completely into a rant about how very little Glenn Beck knows about art and art history, but I can’t let this one pass:

One of the works of art Mr. Beck has been ranting about as a one of the many “horrible” symbols of socialism/communism/whatever at the Rockefeller Center is a mural which hasn’t existed since 1934. It’s true. The Diego Rivera mural called “Man at the Crossroads” was destroyed before being completed, because Rockefeller didn’t like that it included a small portrait of Lenin. It was actually huge news at the time. So, Glenn Beck is throwing a fit about people being exposed to socialist/communist/whatever “propaganda” every day on their way to and from work … in the form of art that hasn’t existed for over 75 years.

Furthermore, Diego Rivera did remake the mural in Mexico City, and the photo Beck is using in his diatribe is the Mexico City version which contains an image of Rockefeller sitting in a nightclub (a dig by Rivera at Rockefeller) and not the original, of which very few photos exist.

Additionally, I’d like Mr. Beck to know that the mural, which no longer exists at the Rockefeller Center, was not painted by anyone from Russia. He seemed to be under the impression a Russian had painted it. Those of you reading this may have noticed the name of the artist was Diego Rivera. He was from Mexico.

While it might help to have taken art history classes to realize all this bullshit as clearly as quickly as I did –I’ve studied a lot of art history, this information is so easy to find on the internet with even the most minimal of searching skills, there is no reason at all for Mr. Beck to make such outstanding mistakes. I started with “Rockefeller Center” and “mural” and found exactly what I needed to verify the mural hasn’t existed since 1934, and that it was Rockefeller himself who had it destroyed (that wily socialist/communist – so sneaky to destroy the socialist/communist art he commissioned).

It’s bad enough Mr. Beck is doing his best to scare people and freak them about about the socialists around every corner, but he could at least try to base his insane “Rockefeller Center Socialist Propaganda” rant on artwork that is actually existing at the Rockefeller Center or has done so more recently than 75 years ago. Not that this will make his ranting any less insane, but at least I might have to search the internet a little harder to prove his bullshit is bullshit. This time, I didn’t actually have search at all, art history being one of my fields of interest^†, and Diego Rivera being someone I studied a good bit.

By the way, Mr. Beck, your argument about Rockefeller (and the Center itself) being socialist –insane as that argument may be, in light of the fact Rockefeller was no socialist– is completely shattered by the fact that Rockefeller himself was outraged about the portrait of Lenin in the mural, isn’t it? I mean, if the mural even still existed at the Rockefeller Center, which it doesn’t, because Rockefeller had it destroyed in 1934.

Anyway, I needed to get that off my chest. Back to sipping apple cider and waiting for fall to get here.

Edited at 11:51 pm to add links and correct some sloppy grammar.

1. † In fact, the only reason I bothered looking it up was I found myself needing a link that explained what happened to include in an email to Keith Olbermann. He’s been ragging on Beck about this art stuff, but Mr. Olbermann didn’t point out that the mural was no longer in existence. Does no one fact check themselves or their opponents anymore? [↩]