Zapatistas

In the late 1920s and 1930s Mexico's most famous muralists, Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros—known as Los tres grandes (The Big Three)—spent significant time living and working in the United States. Although their styles differed dramatically, the slain revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919) figures prominently in their work. Unlike Rivera, who always took a celebratory approach in representing Zapata and his supporters, in this painting Orozco depicts a somber moment in the Mexican Revolution as Zapatistas—Zapata's followers—march toward their death. "I don’t trust revolutions or glorify them since I witnessed too much butchery," Orozco later remarked. His tra...