Jos Clemente Orozcos La Trinchera and Michelangelos Fresco - Research Paper Example

José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera and Michelangelo’s fresco José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera Michelangelo’s Fresco Creation of Adam José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera and Michelangelo fresco The artists and their works that will be chosen for comparison will be José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera, The trench (1926) Michelangelo fresco in the Sistine Chapel. These two artworks of José Clemente Orozco and Michelangelo makes an ideal subjects for comparison because both masterpieces are gigantic in size where José Clemente Orozco is a mural while Michelangelo is a fresco. At the onset, these two artworks may appear to be different and in fact may even impress to be diametrically opposed to each other. José Clemente Orozco’s The Trench is highly political in nature and even suggests violence due the conflict that the trench portrays while Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel is highly religious in nature which follows that it despises violence which is part of the theme of Orozco’s La Trincheta. But if the audience can get pass through the initial impression exuded by the paintings, one will realize that both paintings were used to communicate socio-religious content to their audience. They share many similarities in addition to its socio-religious content, technique, method and size. The most obvious of this is the size of the paintings which are both huge. José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera, The trench, 1926 is a mural which is lifelike in size while Michelangelo fresco in the Sistine Chapel covered the entire internal ceiling off the Sistine Chapel. Background of artworks Renaissance art such as Michelangelo’s fresco is a product of the Renaissance period. The Renaissance was the period that defined the modern Europe where significant intellectual and artistic development has ushered enlightenment due to the improved economic conditions of the people Europe (De Grazia, 2007, pg. 458). The most common characteristic of Renaissance art is religiosity where religious themes are present in art. One of the best representation of Renaissance art is Michelangelo’s fresco where God is central to his artwork. In his fresco, the Michelangelo illustrated the second coming of Jesus Christ and the Last Judgment and the most prominent of which is the Creation of Adam which is celebrated not only for its artistic magnificence but also the allegory it evoke. In contrast to Renaissance art such as Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the fresco of Sistine Chapel, José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera, The trench was a more recent painting having been painted in 1926. Unlike Michelangelo’s fresco which has religious undercurrent which is the dominant theme in the arts during those time, José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera, The trench is painted against the backdrop of Mexican Revolution where Orozco himself had witnessed the carnage and chaos associated in the revolution (jadaliyaa.com) which explains the political undercurrent of the painting. Just like Michelangelo who was considered as one of the most prominent Renaissance painters along with Raphael, Jose Clemente Orozco is one of the most celebrated modernist painters in Mexico (Farhat, 2015). Content Michelangelo’s fresco has no general title but his work can has nine “central themes (The Separation of Light and Darkness, The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth, The Separation of Land and Water, The Creation of Adam, The Creation of Eve, The Temptation and Expulsion, The Sacrifice of Noah, The Great Flood, The Drunkenness of Noah)which portray the key moments in the book of Genesis, with a company of witnesses composed of Old Testament prophets and classical sibyls (prophetesses) (Romaine, 2006 pg. 24) the most prominent of which is the Creation of Adam described as “So God Created Man in His Own Image”. . . God surrounded by angels with Eve (or the Virgin Margy) tucked under his left arm, stretches out his finger to give life to Adam (Romaine, 2006 pg. 24). José Clemente Orozco’s La Trinchera on the other hand is straightforward in its title where La Trinchera translates to trench in English where it shows three individuals with one apparently dead that mimics the position of Jesus Christ in Crucifixion. The similarity may not be immediate but if one could see through the symbolism of La Trinchera, José Clemente Orozco’s actually replaces the angels and the sibyls with the martyrs of Mexican revolution where Orozco developed distinct modernist style that alter the biblical component of the Renaissance art and replaced it with indigenous working class subjects which regained cultural relevance during the Mexican Revolution (Farhat, 2015). So instead of using the art form in liturgy as Michelangelo did in his fresco, José Clemente Orozco used it to “fire the social revolution which taught him to recognize the true face of our civilization and the tragic but inevitable role which blood and bayonets play in the advent of new era” (Lux, 1933 pg. 54). It may not be peaceful, but just the same, José Clemente Orozco’s La Trinchera bears the same patent of using the art to convey a social cause albeit not religious in nature just like in Michelangelo’s fresco. Medium One of the most obvious similarity between the two artworks is their size. Both are huge especially Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel that occupied almost the entire ceiling of the chapel. José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera mural may not be as imposing as the size of Michelangelo’s fresco, but it is without question bigger than most typical artwork as it occupied the walls of the San Ildefonso College’s Escuela Nacional Preparatorial. If there is anything distinctive in the medium of both artworks, it is with Michelangelo’s fresco where his work is executed “in patchwork fashion, in a series of small fields of wet plaster – known as giornate, or “day’s work” – laid at the start of each working day” (King, 2002 pg. 40) due to the limitation of painting technology in the 13th century requiring him a many as dozen assistants in executing his work (King, 2002). Still, both artwork conveyed powerful messages to their audience with Michelangelo’s fresco communicating liturgy and religiosity to its audience while José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera the “solitude and restlessness of the savagery of the Revolution brought with it or the unfulfilled promises of social justice made to the most vulnerable Mexicans (Lozano, 2007 pg. 128) Techniques One of the major facet of Renaissance art is the stability of the composition and the presence of rationale in its art works. In Michelangelo’s fresco, one can readily observe the order and stability of the many characters despite its myriad numbers in the Last Judgment. The light source of the fresco was also highlighted to render a three dimensional figure in artwork which can obviously observed in the many characters on the fresco. Also, the Renaissance ideals are also present in the proportion and rendering of the bodies of the many characters on the fresco where they appear to have proportioned and well defined body even if many of the characters were already old. The technique is also present in José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera where the three prominent characters in the mural were rendered in a realistic albeit less than ideal portrayal of the human body as they are not as proportioned or as muscular in Michelangelo’s fresco. Background and foreground, sense of depth Sense of depth is achieved in Michelangelo’s fresco particularly in the character of Jesus Christ where He stood out from the rest of the characters being the Son of God in Christian liturgy. The effective use of a prominent light background contrasted the character of Jesus Christ in the foreground that made the character stood out and portray holiness. In José Clemente Orozco’s La trinchera, this was also achieved by contrasting the light skin tone of the three main characters and their white trousers against the black and reddish background making the characters in the foreground stood out and achieve a sense of depth in the mural. References De Grazia, Margreta. The Modern Divide: From Either Side.. Journal of Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Fall2007, Vol. 37 Issue 3, p453-467, 15p; DOI: 10.1215/10829636-2007-008 Farhat, M. (2015). Allegory of a Revolution: José Clemente Orozco's. Retrieved June 29, 2015, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/11541/allegory-of-a-revolution_josé-clemente-orozco’s-“t King, R., & Saunders, F. S. (2002). Painting by numbers. New Statesman, 131(4615), 40. Lozano, L. (2007). The Mexican Artists. New Renaissance, 12(3), 127-136. Lux, G. (1933). Painter of This Age. New Republic, 76(977), 54. Romaine, J. (2006). SCRIPTURE ON THE CEILING. Christian History & Biography, (91), 22. Read More