<P> An important artistic movement generated in Latin America is Muralism represented by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Rufino Tamayo and many others in Mexico and Santiago Martinez Delgado, Pedro Nel Gómez in Colombia . Candido Portinari represented the monumentality of Muralism in his paintings, making chronicles the Brazilian people and their realities . Some of the most impressive muralist works can be found in Mexico, Colombia, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia . </P> <P> Mexican painter Frida Kahlo remains by far the most known and famous Latin American artist . She painted about her own life and the Mexican culture in a style combining Realism, Symbolism and Surrealism . Kahlo's work commands the highest selling price of all Latin American paintings . </P> <P> Pre-Columbian cultures were primarily oral, though the Aztecs and Mayans, for instance, produced elaborate codices . Oral accounts of mythological and religious beliefs were also sometimes recorded after the arrival of European colonizers, as was the case with the Popol Vuh . Moreover, a tradition of oral narrative survives to this day, for instance among the Quechua - speaking population of Peru and the Quiché of Guatemala . </P> <P> From the very moment of Europe's "discovery" of the continent, early explorers and conquistadores produced written accounts and crónicas of their experience--such as Columbus's letters or Bernal Díaz del Castillo's description of the conquest of Mexico . During the colonial period, written culture was often in the hands of the church, within which context Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote memorable poetry and philosophical essays . Towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, a distinctive criollo literary tradition emerged, including the first novels such as Lizardi's El Periquillo Sarniento (1816). </P>

What event had the greatest impact on the culture of south america