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Having been in the Orozco mural room only once before — and quite briefly — I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had heard about it but had never taken the time to admire the time and effort José Clemente Orozco had put into these amazing works of art. Seeing the contrast between the ancient world and the modern world was interesting. The panel that left the greatest impact on me was the Gods of the Modern World. I saw it and immediately thought of the phrase “the birth of education” because of the human giving birth to a capped baby on a pile of books. It hadn’t struck me that all of the humans in the panel were skeletons, symbolizing death. I find the irony of skeletons giving birth striking.

Orozco was painting these murals between 1932 and 1934, in the heart of The Great Depression. The flames behind the figures in the back of the mural suggest the political and economic turmoil that was taking place during this time. The robed skeletons are all facing away from the flames and towards the books and the birth giving. This suggests the ignorance of educators toward the issues in contemporary life and instead their focus on their own intellectual world. This is all suggesting useless knowledge. The books at the bottom of the mural are completely black. They look charred. This shows that the intellectual world cannot be separated from the contemporary world and that the fire from the contemporary world still managed to burn the books in the intellectual world. It reveals the unimportance of education while The Great Depression is occurring. When I originally saw this panel I thought “the birth of education”. Now when I see it I think “the death of education”.

The lack of colour contributes to the tone of death in the painting. The little skeletons in the glass jars sitting on the charred books symbolize the forgottoneness of education and those intellectuals who came before. Their positioning in the mural is important; they are with the charred books at the bottom of the mural which signifies the lack of importance of education. The contemporary world is in crisis and in this time of desperation the intellectual world is the least of peoples’ worries. José Clemente Orozco is depicting that when in a time of crisis, it is necessary to focus on the crisis. In the mural, the fire behind the people is going unnoticed, and therefore growing. The people are dead because their lack of care for the rest of the world. Orozco depicts intellectuals as privileged people who don’t care about the world around them. He depicts intellectuals as selfish people but shows that though they may be focused on studies, that will not get them anywhere, hence the skeletons.

After touring the Orozco Mural Room I learned quite a bit about his style and history. I found it very helpful discussing the historical significance of the murals because it gave me them a context which I otherwise may not have figured.