The Artist
In 1905, a 21 year old Mexican named José Orozco lost his left hand manufacturing fireworks, after which he devoted himself full time to his love of drawing. As a young man, he participated in the political protests of the day, along with other young artists like David Siqueiros. Unlike the USA, where we both won our independence and became a democracy by 1789, Mexico first won independence in 1821 but didn’t get its constitution until 1917 during a long messy revolution. Orozco was shocked by scenes of blood, which influenced his art, and also by the heated political conflicts between entrenched conservatives and liberal reformers.
The Dictator
Porfirio Díaz, an independence veteran general elected President, had decided later in life that he was ‘indispensable’, so he remained in office from 1884 to 1911. This was a grand time for the ruling rich in Mexico, who ensconced themselves in lavish homes, emulated European aristocracy and hobnobbed at the opera. The trains ran on time, a Peso was worth over $3 US, foreign investment boomed, and the government ran efficiently. The poor, however, were ignored and illiterate.
The Muralists
Eventually, reformers ousted Díaz, wrote a constitution, and by ~1920, the revolution was over. A major issue for the new republic was how to explain and educate the largely illiterate population about their political gains. Díaz had left the country with many beautiful Baroque buildings, which were now owned by the people. Thus, the future of the nation was entrusted to artists who were commissioned to create huge murals for the public to view their leaders and glorify the struggle for democracy. Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros and José Orozco were the three great muralists who over several decades painted a great catharsis of suffering, conflict and vision upon the walls of grand halls, like the National Palace in Mexico City.
World Heritage Sites
As part of my quest to raise awareness of the Climate Crisis by driving to World Heritage Sites in an electric car, I recently drove to Mexico, where I saw both one of Porfirio Díaz’s opulent theaters and Diego Rivera’s childhood home in Guanajuato, Rivera & Kahlo’s homes on the outskirts of Mexico City, art and revolutionary history in Querétaro and Puebla and even more in the center of Mexico City. For me, it was a crash course in Mexican history and culture, so the highlight was the great murals.
Communism
Diego Rivera, whose wife Frida had an affair with Leon Trotsky while they hosted him in exile, tended towards Communism as offering the most hope in the struggle for the common people. In 1933, Rivera painted Man at the Crossroads for JD Rockefeller Jr, who had it destroyed after correctly identifying Communists in the mural. (Rivera redid the same mural as Man Controller of the Universe for the Palacio de Bellas Artes). Siqueiros, who had fought Franco’s fascists in Spain, was even more hard line Communist, going so far as to try to assassinate Trotsky in 1940, who had been forced out of Russia years earlier after opposing Stalin backing the Kuomintang in China. Chiang Kai Shek’s KMT betrayed the Communists in 1927, before his party lost to Mao and retreated to Taiwan. Perhaps because Trotsky had been correct about the KMT, Stalin successfully assassinated Trotsky 3 months later in Kahlo’s neighborhood in Mexico City. Suffice it to say that Communism didn’t turn out as planned.
Orozco’s Vision
Orozco, who had also worked as a cartoonist, had a sense of humor and perhaps a broader perspective than his muralist peers. While the others used symbolism to score specific political points and to spread their political views didactically, Orozco used symbolism to describe history and humanity, big picture. His art depicts the Europeans arriving in the new world, the subjugation of native cultures, colonial Christianity, the Industrial Revolution, the grinding quest for power, and both technological and actual revolution. After all these years, to me, Rivera’s pop-culture references appear dated, Siqueiros’ work appears lurid and abstract, but Orozco’s seem to show a stark contrast between good vs evil, greed and suffering, progress vs conservatism, and human frailty vs dictatorial domination. But there is one Orozco theme, one obsession with a myth, that reaches out to us today.
Prometheus
Ancient mythology tells us that a Titan once challenged the Olympic Gods and stole their fire to give to humanity, lifting early civilization out of the cold and dark. Prometheus is his Greek name, meaning ‘forethought’, but his name may mean ‘fire thief’ in even earlier Indian mythology. Since Zeus believed he acted emotionally out of empathy for humans, Zeus had him chained to a rock where an eagle would eat his liver (the source of emotions) for breakfast daily, growing back nightly. His wounded suffering while splayed out for punishment made Prometheus a popular figure in florid Christian art by Rubens and others.
Orozco’s Prometheus
In 1930, Orozco painted a mural in the dining room at Pomona College in Southern California. Many Americans, being immature boors, tend to focus on the penis, which Orozco left out originally and tried to add back, only to have it fall off later. But the heart of the mural is the hands of Prometheus, engulfed in flames, displaying the pain of the moment a man first dared to wrest enlightenment from the Gods. Jackson Pollack saw the mural and called it “the greatest painting in America”. I liked it too.
Orozco’s Man of Fire
In 1939, Orozco revisited the theme for the centerpiece of his master mural gallery at Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara. Amidst critical series of conquistadors and dictators, bishops and lost cultures, one figure rises above it all, the Man of Fire, now entirely consumed in flames, yet immortal in his quest to enlighten the masses. Along with all our advancements, many people inevitably suffer consequences. The enlightened reformers are punished by conservatives who resist challenges to their power.
World on Fire
Murals require us to step back, to try to see the bigger picture. Once fossil fuels were seen as a gift to civilization, but now they are a curse. The enlightened among us today see no choice but to abandon fossil fuels as soon as possible. But the powerful few, as so often in history, resist change using all the tools at their disposal, manipulating the public, despite the terrible consequences of delay.
Time has a way of reducing historic figures to ridiculous caricatures of human weakness. At historic moments, a few political figures become historically consequential, but the masses always suffer. Given time, we would look back on Trump, Putin and their authoritarian allies as insane liars, risking life on Earth for power and petrodollars. But the consequences of continued inaction on the Climate Crisis may include collapse of civilization, meaning that in a few decades we may have more pressing issues than historical debates over our current politicians.
Today, there is no more urgent and important threat than the impending end of most life on Earth. No amount of air conditioning will protect your family from famine, fires and floods. There is no country that you can flee to that will be immune to the Climate Crisis. Epidemics and refugees are now global problems. Nobody wants war or revolution, but those will become our only viable options if we lose (or waste) our vote, if Democracy falls, and if we are forced to continue on an unsustainable path.
Weakness and stupidity at this time in history are not forgivable. We can choose sustainable fuels, or we can let powerful men perpetuate destructive fuels. We can act to save life on earth, or we can do nothing while liars scheme to control us.
Today, our world is on fire. Some may believe themselves invincible and deserving of Godlike powers, but our actions come with destructive consequences that we must try to see, understand and prevent. We must give up fossil fuels, or our world will burn.