These murals are two-stories high and are done with oil paint on six-sheet cedar plywood which are mounted on the east and west walls of the delegates’ lobby on the ground floor of the General Assembly building. The east wall as you enter represents war, while the west wall represents peace.

Artist Candido Portinari said that the Peace mural was inspired by the ideal state of serenity and peacefulness of the spirit described in The Eumenides by Aeschylus. Using what he called “simple and pure forms, bathed in light,” his mural of Peace suggests a “brotherhood of understanding among men.” In contrast to the blue hues of War, Peace is painted in warmer tones, mainly in yellow, depicting playing children and carnival celebrations. The children play on seesaws, do somersaults, dance and sing in a chorus – scenes intended to transmit to the viewer the sweetness of peace.

In the early 1950s, Secretary-General Trygve Lie asked all Member states to present the United Nations with a work of art that represented their culture. Brazil commissioned Candido Portinari to make an artwork for the United Nations with the theme war and peace. Portinari (1903 – 1962) created two murals entitled War (east wall) and Peace (west wall) respectively.

The murals are placed outside the General Assembly Hall so that the delegates face War on their way into the building, and Peace as they leave, functioning as a visual framework for negotiations.
 
At the re-inauguration of the murals after their conservation in 2015, then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “War and Peace are more than magnificent works of art – they are Portinari’s call to action. Thanks to him, all leaders who enter the United Nations see the terrible toll of war – and the universal dream for peace.”