Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"In the lithograph, La Familia, José Clemente Orozco, the famous Mexican muralist, represented three generations of women during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). The women, dressed in traditional Mexican clothing, are sleeping outside against a stone building. On the left, a curtain gives the viewers the sense they are glimpsing the women through a window - a feature often found in his mural paintings. Although the women are asleep, their attitude conveys a deep sense of sorrow, but also of faith: faith in the family.
For Orozco, family and motherhood were very important. His mother Rosa Flores, whom he describes as having an independent mind, had a great influence on the content and spirit of his work. She, like most women of Mexico, took responsibility for the raising of her children and the well-being of her family. The artist’s own family also influenced his work. He actually began printmaking so that he might better provide for his wife and children, and the themes of his prints often revolved around the family. He wanted to represent the Mexican family in its true environment and show how the Mexican Revolution affected it.
In the early Twentieth century, women of Mexico were often trapped in the traditional roles of caretaker, wife, and mother. The Revolution, however, allowed women to embrace other roles and to find an identity of their own. The Revolutionaries, Alvarado and Carrillo Puerto argued that, while women needed education to be freed from their traditional bonds of servitude, they should not become so dangerously modern as to shun their roles as mother or become masculinized. The three women represented in the print seem hardly concerned by such social changes. Without a roof over their heads and the support of a man, they are among the poorest Mexicans, and are just trying to get by.
Under the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911), the rich had been strongly favored and the power of the Catholic Church had increased. As a result of his politics, there were only two classes in Mexico: the rich and the poor. Families had no choice but to stay close. Because of both lack of money and traditionalism, many generations lived together under the same roof. Although the goal of the Revolution was to improve the fate of those people, the turmoil it brought often worsened their situation, as is the case for the women of La Familia.
Compared to the other Mexican Muralists, Orozco’s work is unique because he felt empathy for his people and wanted to tell their true story – not a tale of heroism or a nightmarish vision of decadence. He once said: “My one theme is humanity. My one tendency is emotion to the maximum. My means, the real and integral representation of bodies is themselves and in their inter-relation.” In his work, Orozco focused on human suffering and chaos to the point of relentlessness. He was obsessed with the horrors and ironies the events of the Revolution had spread before him, and he personally identified with the victims.
His prints of the 1920s send a moving message of suffering as well as hope. Casa Arruinada (1928), for instance, also shows the three generations of a family, but includes the large figure of male protector, who looks over them as they flee their house in ruins. Despite the anguish on their faces and the precariousness of their situation, there is a light of hope: they lost their roof, but not their togetherness.
Kara Erdmann
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