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Diego Rivera. Liberation of the Peon. 1923. Fresco, approx. 14' 4 3/8" x 11' 5" (4.38 x 3.48 m). South wall of the Patio del Trabajo (Courtyard of Labor), first floor, Secretaría de Educación Pública, Mexico City. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Schalkwijk/Art Resource, New York
Diego Rivera. The Rural Schoolteacher. 1923. Fresco, approx. 14' 4 3/8" x 10' 8 3/4" (4.38 x 3.27 m). South wall of the Patio del Trabajo (Courtyard of Labor), first floor, Secretaría de Educación Pública, Mexico City. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Rafael Doniz
Liberation of the Peon is based on a panel from Rivera’s mural cycle at the Secretaría de Educación Pública in Mexico City. There, the chilling scene captured in this mural panel is coupled with The Rural Schoolteacher, which touts recent efforts to expand state-run education programs and highlights the benefits of post-revolutionary reforms. Shown alone at The Museum of Modern Art, the meaning of Liberation of the Peon shifted to focus on the sacrifice inherent in revolutionary struggle.
Giotto di Bondone (Italian, c. 1267–1337). The Lamentation of Christ. c. 1305. Fresco. Panel approx. 78 3/4 x 72 3/4" (200 x 185 cm). Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua, Italy. Photograph by Scala/Art Resource, New York
While its subject is secular, Liberation of the Peon evokes Christian imagery, specifically the lamentation over Christ’s body after his crucifixion. The composition draws heavily on Giotto’s Lamentation at the Capella degli Scrovegni in Padua, Italy, which Rivera had studied first-hand. He shared this strategy of transforming religious imagery into revolutionary narrative with many Mexican muralists during the movement’s early years.
Revolutionary soldiers gathered at the headquarters of Francisco I. Madero, President of Mexico (1911–1913), at the Hacienda de San Diego in Chihuahua, Mexico. c. 1912. Photograph by the Bain News Service. The Library of Congress; Bain Collection
Before the Mexican Revolution, haciendas—vast agricultural estates owned by wealthy Mexicans or foreigners—dominated the country’s social and political landscape. Set ablaze by the rebels in the picture’s foreground, this estate, surrounded by a harsh desert landscape, appears to be located in the northern heartland of Mexico, where the Revolution was launched.
Anonymous. Crucified Christ. Mexican. 1550–1600. Polychromed cornstalk paste. Figure height 78 3/4" (200 cm); cross height 106 1/4" (270 cm). Templo de San Francisco, Tlaxcala, Mexico. Photograph by Gerardo Suter–Lourdes Almeida; image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
References to Mexican artistic traditions add to Liberation of the Peon’s visceral impact. Devotional imagery created during Mexico’s colonial period was often gory, emphasizing graphic violence and the wounds inflicted on Christ. In his portable mural, Rivera carefully described the individual whip-wounds that cover the peon’s broken body, underscoring the sacrifices made in the revolutionary process.
Mexican revolutionaries in Juárez, Mexico. c. 1911. Photographer unknown. The Library of Congress
Rivera signals that the men who care for the peon’s body are revolutionaries by wrapping them in cartridge belts and equipping them with visible firearms. Comprised of mixed groups of rebels, many of whom were untrained, Mexican revolutionary soldiers lacked a single, easily recognizable uniform, and often fought in their usual work clothes.