A mural is a piece of art created on the surface of a wall or ceiling, as in public places. This type of art began with the ancients, where murals served to tell a story, illustrate historical events, and focus on religious themes along with societal issues. Murals became popularized around the 20th century in Mexico, when Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros pioneered the Mexican Muralism movement. Such artists favored the use of murals as a medium of honoring indiginous culture as opposed to other political methods, thus influencing a positive shift within the international political art scene. Murals make a powerful statement and do also serve as a form of social commentary, as well as an expression of art and creativity in the community. They beautifully change the character of streets, cities, beautifying the public space with fresh colors and new stories. Recently, there has been a change which shows street artists gaining a lot of popularity for creating murals, like Banksy, Shepard Fairey and Swoon. Usually, murals are large and quickly done, encouraging viewers not only to perceive the so-called art, but to interact with it which leads to the uniting of life and traditional art culture.