Image 1: The Gods of the Modern World by José Clemente Orozco

In the fifteenth panel of Jose Clemente Orozco’s, The Epic Of American Civilization, Orozco comments on the modern education system through harrowing imagery. It is immediately evident that this panel is meant to convey a chaotic and disturbing mood. Orozco uses a number of techniques to achieve this goal within The Gods of the Modern World.

Firstly, the most prominent figure in the panel is a large skeleton that appears to be flailing and contorted. Skeletons are generally thought to be motionless, yet Orozco manages to create expression within this skeleton by illustrating the skeleton’s limbs as reaching outwards in various directions. This figure’s prominent placement provokes an immediate sense of pain within the mural, as Orozco illustrates something conventionally seen as senseless and apathetic as if in suffering. When I viewed this image, I detected that the scene in the panel must be of such viciousness that even a hollow skeleton could be petrified. It is also notable that skeletons are a symbol of death. By giving life to these skeletons, Orozco is alluding to the subject matter within the mural as so constricted that these figures are essentially dead.

To further express this mood, Orozco depicts five emotionless figures in the background, observing the atrocity at hand without any display of alarm. This depicts what conscious viewers consider egregious as commonplace within the mural, creating a harrowing realization for the viewer. Behind these figures, deep strokes of bold red depict a fiery environment, symbolic of sin.

In the foreground, many infantile skeletons are held within specimen jars. Specimen jars hold dead beings; an indication that Orozco’s feels as if the victims of the “gods” in the image are doomed from infancy and that opportunity for the growth of the young is nonexistent.

The mortarboards worn by the deathly figures in the panel are a telltale indication of Orozco’s intended message in the work. Depicting images of higher education in this disturbing context outline Orozco’s concern that despite his opinion that the modern education system is a failing enterprise, it is an omnipotent governing body of society. It appears as though the prominent naked skeleton is giving birth into the hands of an educator. This imagery of a child being born into this circumstance is Orozco’s outcry against his opinion that children are predetermined by education as social construct and therefore cannot explore their minds creatively. This is furthered by the specimen jars, another way in which youth shown as contained within this panel.

Another indication of Orozco’s intention of criticizing the education system lies in the title, The Gods of the Modern World. This title overtly exemplifies Orozco’s view that these high educators have overreaching power so much so that their governing powers are godlike.

In order to strengthen the conveyance of this message through his art, Orozco shrewdly uses both illusionistic and abstract techniques to better relate his subject matter to the viewer’s previous opinion on the topic. The art is abstract in its use of fantastical life forms through conscious skeletons, but it is illusionistic in depicting these life forms as relatable to our conception of humanity. This allows Orozco to alert the reader that this depiction is of course hyperbolic in nature through the more abstract images, but is still relatable to the viewer’s morality through illusionistic imagery.

It is notable that Orozco painted this panel of the mural project only after he had completed all other panels. Orozco likely predicted that a criticism of the education system would be frowned upon in a place of higher education. Orozco was proven right, as The Gods of the Modern World was a centerpiece of the controversy surrounding the mural as a whole.