This article accompanies the fable
A Tale of Two Women



José Clemente Orozco’s The Franciscan



Is this a positive image or a predatory image?

Some critics view this image from 1926 as a nurturing image where the Franciscan father embraces the emaciated Indian - Orozco was more sympathetic than most to the early colonial Catholic priests and their mission to the Indians. Others see a more sinister motive at work, almost vampiric, and consistent with Orozco's habitual cynicism about all beliefs and ideologies. Below is another much more sympathetic version, also from 1926, in the Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City.