Jose Clemente Orozco Epic Of American Civilization: Anglo-America

In Jose Clemente Orozco's fresco Epic of American Civilization: Anglo-America (panel 15), Orozco uses the visual elements and design in planning out this work. Shape and form are present in the work, but also, value, color, space, time, and lines are used as well. Orozco makes use of these elements to show the ideas that are being formed in this piece. The use of shape is present in this work as buildings and people. The buildings are two-dimensional shapes that form the structures while the people are three-dimensional positive shapes with very little negative shape. The work is busy with the positive shapes that are represented as the people. But, this is not the only part of shape and form: Orozco also makes us of geometric shapes in his buildings and structures that give a flat three-dimensional appearance as well as geometric shapes to show the circle of people. …show more content…
Space is the dynamic visual element that interacts with the lines and shapes. Space here is represented as implied space, which gives the appearance of depth in the circle of people. It is used to imply that the people in the middle of the work are not standing face to face, but are spaced apart and gathered in a circle. This also demonstrates linear perspective in that even though the people are stacked the appearance of depth is given by the space that was made. Texture is presented in a way that is distracting from the work. The work is described as visual texture because the texture is not real, however, there is the illusion of the texture being real. In the lower left corner is a representation of visual texture whose value ranges between a light beige to a deeper value beige. This is in contrast to the rest of the work which is monochromatic with varying values of blue. The monochromatic element compliments the shapes, and space by adding an additional element of the work being perceived as having a circle of