Revolutionary Mexican Artists

I personally believe that the works of Jose Clemente Orozco made him the most “revolutionary” artist of “Los Tres Grandes”. While Orozco was the least politically active of the three (although he did partake in the PCM), he was still able to convey his thoughts and ideas, both politically and socially, throughout all of his works. For example, in The Revolutionary Trinity, Orozco uses the replaces the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost of Christianity with images of fighters and workers of the revolution. By doing this, he expresses his concern with the revolution and its lasting effects on the common man, the worker with his hands cut off and the soldier who is fighting blindly for a cause. Orozco was often highly critical of other aspects of society, for example he criticized educational systems, American society, government corruption and the use of individual ideologies in order to justify going to war. Orozco’s style leans more toward that of social realism. He often painted his ideas based on social issues that he felt was of importance at the time and painted his murals to express these issues. Also, with his background as a cartoonist for La Vanguardia during the revolution, some of his murals also has the feel of being a bit cartoon-like, which also differentiated him, stylistically, from Rivera and Siquieros.