Orozco murals in Guadalajara: Shock and awe

There are flames emanating from the dome of the Hospicio Cabanas in Guadalajara. A man is being consumed by fire. But instead of trying to save him, visitors are looking enthralled. Because this masterpiece is, of course, the dark work of painter Jose Clemente Orozco, in what has been come to be known as the Sistine Chapel of the Americas.

Him being mostly unknown outside of his native Mexico is a monstruous injustice. His life was as grand as his art: full of drama, emotions and explosions. He was one of the Big Three of Mexican muralists – together with Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros – a trio that in the twenties and thirties of the 20th century reshaped art in the country.

Dark and deep

But Orozco’s works were always the most striking. His paintings reminded me of Mark Rothko and his thirty ‘Seagram murals’, a series of works that were intended for a restaurant inside New York’s famous Seagram building. These dark, deep-reddish, abstract paintings take over every room they occupy.
I always visit the Mark Rothko room when I am inside the Tate Modern in London, admiring the nine paintings hanging there from the Seagram series. You can just sit and get carried away by the doom these paintings exude. You can experience the same when you visit Guadalajara, the place where most of Orozco’s masterworks can be found.

Biography

First a short biography. Because to understand man’s life is to understand man’s art. Orozco was born in 1883 in Jalisco, the state where Guadalajara lies as well. But his family moved to Mexico City early in his life (here is an overview of the works of Orozco you can find in Mexico City). It’s also the place where he lost his left hand age 21, after an accident with fireworks.

The loss of his father gave him the motivation to fully explore his love for painting. But it took a long time before his career took off, also because of the Mexican struggle for independence between 1910 and 1920.

That period also focused Orozco’s attention towards injustices happening everywhere around him. Mexico, liberated from the Spanish conquistadores, was being optimistically sold as the ‘brave new world’. His fellow muralist Rivera actually agreed and saw this revolution as entirely positive. But Orozco was much more negative, especially because the loss of life of the struggle for independence.

Lucha Social mural by Orozco, above main staircase of Palacio Gobierno in Guadalajara

Murals as history lessons

Ironically enough, the revolution that Orozco was so sceptical of, also kickstarted the muralist movement. Because the new government needed these huge paintings to explain the history of the country to a mostly illiterate population.

Rivera made many of them in Mexico City. Orozco only a few, before he went to America for several years. There he witnessed the stock crash of 1929, which made him wary of technological progress.

It is against this background that he returned to his home province, to the capital of the state of Jalisco, to embark on a five-year long creative streak that would shape his career and the city of Guadalajara.

1934: Palacio de Gobierno

The first big commission was for the Government Palace, next to the cathedral. As with most of his works, nothing on the outside of the building suggests the exceptional paintings that can be found inside.
But after you have signed in at the entrance (the palace can be visited for free), your first turn to the right transports you into another world. The main staircase is covered by Lucha Social (Social Struggle). It veers in all directions and shows Father Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico’s father of independence, wave with a torch to wave off shadowy figures that apparently represent slavery and oppression.
Hidalgo is also celebrated in the second – even bigger – mural in the Chamber of Deputies, which looks like a semi-circular parliament hall. In this painting he abolishes slavery – but with a blood-colored stroke. Remember how sceptic Orozco was about the human cost of the independence struggle?

1935-1937: University murals

Close to where his workshop and house were (which became the Casa Taller Orozco museum after his death in 1949), he embarked on two works that are lesser known as they are located at the edge of the city center. The MUSA (Museo de las Artes – Universidad de Guadalajara) is opposite the main university buildings in a beautiful old palace.

The museum spaces are actually in the rooms and corridors on the first floor around the paraninfo (auditorium). But the auditorium itself, still in use, is actually where Orozco’s works are.

El Pueblo y sus falsos Lideres mural by Orozco in the MUSA in Guadalajara

So I ended up between students listening to some lecture, whilst I was admiring two great works. Behind the lecture stage is El pueblo y sus falsos líderes (The People and Their False Leaders), which fills the top half of the wall. It is uncharacteristically bleak, with a mass of bodies who look skeletal and blind and raise their arms in protest against the leaders. It is quite stunning to imagine something so political and critical to be painted in the thirties.

The second work, El hombre creador y rebelde (The Creator and Rebel), is much more vibrant. Or doom and gloom, you could also say, as it is painted in Orozco-typical deep-red and dark colors. Because the painting surfaces dried quickly, only a portion of the wall could be finished on the same day as it was prepared. That is why these works are divided into areas known as giornata (work day) or tasks. Remarkably enough you don’t see separations between these giornatas.

El hombre creador y rebelde is painted inside the auditorium’s dome. It features a worker and a wise man or a scientist. The location on the dome makes it at least look like a dress rehearsal for Orozco’s masterpiece-to-come: the Man of Fire.

1939: Hospicio Cabanas

One of the biggest former hospitals and orphanages of Latin America, in the heart of Guadalajara, Hospicio Cabanas is a haven of peace. It is a huge complex of rooms, corridors, and especially inner courtyards so peaceful one would forget the loud cars outside these walls.

This UNESCO World Heritage site hosts excellent temporary exhibitions of contemporary art, absolutely fascinating stuff. But… everything revolves of course around the church in the center. This one has earned its nickname, the Sistine Chapel of the America, because of one man: Jose Clemente Orozco.

Orozco mural in central nave of Hospicio Cabanas in Guadalajara

The best way to enjoy most of the 57 expressionist frescoes is actually to just lay on your back in the central nave. This ensemble is almost a short history of the struggle for independence, with too much colors, animals, people and violence to take in.

Philip II, the King of Spain, looks on from behind a wooden cross. The conquistadores are a two-headed horse monster. This is a space for a clash of cultures, where the colonial Spanish forces and the indigenous Mexican people crash head-on.

And whether the Man of Fire, burning on the ceiling of the central dome, is moving upwards to glory or to oblivion is almost irrelevant: the fire and surrounding bloodshed just leave you shocked, impressed, confused and haunted. Which must have been Orozco’s main goal. There is so much to discover that this is, like the paintings of Dali, a piece of art you should revisit to discover more and more layers.

More Orozco?

Still not fed up with this Mexican master? You can find his paintings in the Casa Taller in Guadalajara as well of course. In Mexico City the Museo Carillo Gil also has lots of his paintings. Same goes for the Museum of Contemporary Art in CDMX. Finally, you can find murals of Orozco in Mexico City amongst others in the National Teachers College and on the third floor of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Katharsis (Catharsis), depicting the conflict between humankind’s ‘social’ and ‘natural’ aspects).

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[…] we landed in Guadalajara at one point, and I saw those murals, which exist as-described in the book in an old, small Spanish cathedral. It was one of those encounters that at the time I didn’t realize would be so formative, but over […]