José Clemente Orozco is one of the so-called three greats of Mexican muralism. However, some of his great works are still not well known. Discover the mural of him in the Municipal Palace of Orizaba!
by Mexico Unknown
After the great military campaigns that shook the country during the Mexican Revolution, the construction of the new regime began, that of the Revolutionary State. Muralism was part of the cultural mystique of that historical period, and without a doubt José Clemente Orozco was one of its great protagonists. He painted various murals, some very well known, but others not so much. One of them is the one found in the Municipal Palace of Orizaba, Veracruz.
Vasconcelos’ cultural crusade
Once the strongest turbulence of the armed stage of the Mexican Revolution, between 1910 and 1920, was over, the rise of the new state institutions would come. For the president of Mexico, General Álvaro Obregón, an area of special interest was education. For this, he appointed José Vasconcelos as Secretary of Public Education in 1921.
Taking advantage of the support received from the presidency as well as the resources of his government ministry, Vasconcelos promoted a large-scale educational crusade during his administration, in order to spread culture in the country, with popular education programs, rural schools, book publishing. and promotion of art and culture. The goal was to integrate Mexico into the great changes that occurred in the world, starting from the significant events of the beginning of the 20th century: the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the Mexican Revolution itself, among some others. One of the most famous and specific objectives of this campaign was to educate the majority of the country’s population to read and write.
Muralism
It is in this way that one of the flanks that Vasconcelos decided to address was that of the plastic arts, by using them as a means of disseminating universal knowledge. In 1921, the Secretary of Public Education contacted Diego Rivera (who was in Europe) and other young Mexican painters, in order to make them part of his great cultural crusade and begin commissioning their first works. There is controversy about whose idea of the mural format was, but it is clear that the first great example of this is Rivera’s work “The Creation” (1922), carried out in the Simón Bolívar Antitheater of the UNAM National Preparatory School, in what is currently the Old School of San Ildefonso.
With this, the artistic movement of Mexican muralism began. Very soon the muralists rebelled against the directives of José Vasconcelos, embracing the social spirit of the Mexican Revolution; They also sought to develop a new national identity, arising from the vindication of local traditions and the indigenous peoples who inhabit Mexico. Several names began to stand out; one of them was José Clemente Orozco from Jalisco.
