JOSE CLEMENTE ORAZCO’S EPIC
Matthew Johnson
Art 458: Modern Latin American Art Professor Paquette
17 November 2016
In 1934 José Clemente Orozco completed a two-year fresco mural project at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Located in the Baker Library at the center of campus, The Epic of American Civilization is comprised of twenty-six panels that form a somewhat chronological treatise on the historical and sociological evolution of North America. Not only is the work epic in subject matter, but also in size, as it measures almost 150 feet long.1
The mural is a grand statement, with a host of allegorical and ideological components, but it maintains a cohesive narrative throughout. The dual identities of Mexico and the United States are explored under a common umbrella, the two nations’ futures inextricably bound by their common pasts. Orozco erases the idea of American exceptionalism by refocusing U.S. creation myths through a lens of common origin: colonialism, indigenous genocide, and the cyclical nature of violence, revolution, and labor rights universal to both countries.
Political and physical conflict provide the impetus for Orozco to find himself in the United States for the second time in a decade, this period from 1927-1934. In Orozco in Gringoland, Alejandro Anreus gives several explanations for the move north. Mexico was involved in the Cristero War and the Mexican government had eliminated the anarcho- syndicalist labor movement.2 Although Orozco was
Acclaimed American author Richard Rodriquez’s autobiography “Days of Obligation” conveys that his feelings for both Mexico and the United States can be expressed through contrasts. Rodriquez uses pathos, tropes, and schemes to articulate his feelings. His purpose for writing about the contrasts between Mexico and California is to help readers understand the differences that affected his life. Rodriguez’s relationship with his literate audience is personal, since he is opening about his personal life and his views on it.
I. Attention Getter: (Spoken text starts here) Mexico is a very diverse country, and is extremely different from others. Throughout history, Mexico has faced a very bloody and violent history that has been known around the world. As a result, their society is somewhat different from anything that has been seen before and is in itself unique compared to societies such as the United States
After the Mexican Revolution, which took place from 1910 - 1920, Mexican art saw a change in the type of art being created. Although the focus of creating art with an indigenous and Mexican theme continued, the country saw a shift to art presenting socialist ideals. The government saw value in working with local artist and commissioning them to create murals that would influence their political agendas. However, what these murals mostly did was strengthen the Mexican culture and bring pride to the indigenous heritage. Although this time period has come and gone, its influence over Mexican art and culture is still very apparent today and can even be seen in Mexican American communities today.
During the Mexican Revolution there were many prominent figures that emerged during the long struggle. Some of the figures had a positive impact on the region, and some others a very negative impact on the people of Mexico and their quest for an uncorrupted government. One figure that stands out in the border region between Mexico and The United States during this time is General Francisco “Pancho” Villa. To understand Pancho Villa’s significant role during this uprising it is important to understand who Villa was prior to the revolution, and what acts lead to his rise to power.
country of Mexico showcasing what Mexico has to offer. Showing how the art of the ancient people are expressed. Being taken over by the Spanish colonial towns are seen in Mexico’s capital Mexico City. Located in Mexico City a lot can be find influencing their art, shops, renowned museums and very good tasty restaurants to modern life, as well showing their ancient art of the ancient civilizations, and ancient culture. The earliest real civilization in Mexico was the Olmec culture which came from of the Gulf Coast from around 1500 BCE.
MAS 10B (also known as Mexican-American 10B) is a course that helps students’ become exposed to a different perspective by using a historical, cultural, and political approach within readings, discussions, and group work regarding about the ongoing Mexican struggle and how it affects us. The course examines this in a chronological order of the Mexican struggle with the capitalist in 1848 to the May Day 2006 marches. Overall, the course presented through a different perspective and provided us with tools to analyze each event, whether it would be the strike of the local-890 mill to the 1992 Los Angeles riots that all these events are linked to the present day and the impacts it has had for Mexicans.
The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly
Gloria Anzaldúa writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created in and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzaldúa presents this information in various identifiable ways including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzaldúa is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously
Henderson provides this book to as a means to correct the current Anglo-centric literature that circulates America, in which blames Mexico for its own losses
The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are
Historian David Gutierrezs provocative study of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants, Walls and Mirrors, could not have come at a more timely moment. As the role of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, again comes under scrutiny, Gutierrez provides us with a well-researched investigation of the issues surrounding immigration, but from a different perspective than most. - See more at:
To begin addressing this assignment first I must define what art is throughout the weeks I have been enrolled in “Art and Architecture of Latin America.” To me what I have come to interpret is that art doesn’t necessarily have to involve paper, pencil or paint. Art is something that receives public reaction or that it can relate to someone. For example, take the drawings of Diego Rivera. One of his most famous works named “History of Mexico from the Conquest to the Future” can be found in Fresco, National Palace, Mexico City relates to his people's lives. Why you may ask? Well if you look closely to his drawings it shows the history of Mexico since the conquest of the Spaniards to the revolutions that emerged throughout Spaniard rule up until
When Octavio Paz first visited the largest Mexican population center outside of Mexico’s international borders, Los Angles, he said the city had a "vague atmosphere" of Mexicanism in that manifested itself through "delight in decorations, carelessness and pomp, negligence, passion and reserve." But he felt that his "ragged but beautiful" ghost of Mexican identity rarely interacted with "the North American world based on precision and efficiency." Instead, this Mexicanism floated above the city, "never quite existing, never quite vanishing.1By the time Paz visited the exterior Mexico, a generation of Mexican revolution immigrants had their children in the United States and they had matured. These people had heard the corridos of the Revolutionary
Throughout time Mexicans and Mexican Americans have had to endure a tremendous amount of discrimination, hate, and prejudice. From some of the main events like Mexico claiming independence from Spain, then having a huge conflict and eventually war with the Americans and even now in modern day America, Mexicans are still facing these injustices. In this paper I will go over a lot of the main events in Mexican history like colonization, incorporation of Mexican Americans into the US society, politics, and economy and lastly discuss some important key terms.
In "Circles and Lines: the shape of life in early America", historian John Demos has compiled a collection of three lectures which are part of the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures located in the History of American Civilization series at Harvard University.