José Clemente Orozco's Prometheus:

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About José Clemente's Orozco
José Clemente Orozco was a courageous choice for the Pomona commission given his relative obscurity in 1930 and the fact that his style contrasted sharply with that of the muted, decorative murals to which the American public was accustomed. Orozco's early artistic training, at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City, had been based on the study of classical Greek and Roman sculpture and emphasized drawing from the nude. To this influence was added that of the Renaissance master Michelangelo, whose muscular, expressively exaggerated human forms became a primary sources of inspiration. At the same time, Orozco was intensely aware of contemporary Mexican mural painting--bold and highly colored in style, fervently political in content. While one sees in Prometheus a blending of these influences, the finished painting rises above them, presenting a uniquely personal statement unlike anything seen before. As scholar David Scott has written: "In at least one fundamental sense, the Prometheus was the first major "modern" fresco in this country . . . It revealed a new concept of mural painting, a greatly heightened direct and personal expression. It challenged accepted conventions which decreed that wall decoration should be flat and graceful, pleasant, decorous, and impersonal. In the Prometheus, Expressionism achieved a monumental scale."

Prometheus was well-received at the time, and the skill with which Orozco had scaled the composition to its architectural environment was particularly applauded. In a Time magazine interview in 1930, architect Spalding was asked how he liked the mural; he responded: "I feel as though the building would fall down if the fresco were removed." Like many of history's greatest artists, Orozco did not paint primarily to provide aesthetic pleasure. He had something to say--in this case, a passionate statement about heroism and enlightenment--and the harsh and vigorous style he employed was deliberate, an expression of the fervor of his convictions and of his passion to communicate them.