Jose Clemente Orozco The Mural Analysis

José Clemente Orozco painted the mural Dive Bomber and Tank in front of guest at The Museum of Modern Art in 1940. The work of art was made in honor of the exhibition, “Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art.” Despite being during the time of the Second World War and the nature of the mural, Orozco stated that the mural had no political symbolism. Orozco was expressing his interpretation of the devastating effects war can have on a soul and hence goes on to use mostly a cool palette, consisting of majority black and gray, to captivate that message.
When you first take a look at the mural you enter the scene through the chains and work your way to the the faces intertwined within the chains. At first glance you can see that the expression on the human depictions are not pleasant. The mood of the faces range from sorrow on the left to horror on the right. Alongside the look on their faces there is a lot of chain wrapped around them which symbolizes heavy constraint. The statement possibly conveyed here is that modern war and its technologies are unforgivably destructive and is a great burden on the human soul. Further evidence to support this thesis are the three human legs that rise from the hopelessness in the second to last panel.
For example, the tank can be sought out through the tracks on the left and partially on the right of the painting. The more usefully track, however; is the left track which creates an atmospheric perspective that exhibits an idea that the shrap metal along with the faces are stacked on one another. When following up the left tank track you also come across a plane wing which can be assumed to be the wing of the bomber. Right to the wing and above the first two faces is what I deemed a visual bridge that takes you to the right side of the painting; where you find more debris and come across the upturned human