Analysis of materials of the mural painting 'Los Prometeos' of Arnold Belkin, Managua, Nicaragua

Arnold Belkin was one of the most important exponents of the new muralism, in his paintings topics like war, dead, injustice, as well as hope, peace, society transformation and science benefits to the humankind were always related. One of these murals is the 'Los Prometeos' located at Managua, Nicaragua. This mural painting actually is suffering a localized deterioration by weather conditions (humidity) and manufacture techniques. Samples were collected from different spots of mural which shows the deterioration problem, in order to characterized them scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction were used to analyzed the soluble salts influences (sulfates and chlorides) in the deterioration mechanism problem. (Author) 9 refs., 10 tabs., 17 figs