GODS OF THE MODERN WORLD
Following through on the theme of the long-awaited return of the god Quetzalcoatl, who brought to the ancient Americans a new way of life and freedom from their superstitious bondage to the old idols, Orozco protests in this panel against the fetish worship of dead knowledge for its own sake. The panel is analogous to the fourth panel, depicting the gods of the ancient world who were displaced by Quetzalcoatl. Stillborn knowledge is shown being delivered from a skeleton parent, couched on ponderous tomes, by the pedantically solicitous hands of a skeletal obstetrician in academic gown. The "gods of the modern world" are pictured in the academic costume of various universities, European and American. A lurid background suggests a world aflame, whose salvation lies not in the exegeses of old thought. In the powerful negation of this mural, Orozco calls for a new positiveness in the creative use of knowledge. He conjures away the sterile ritual of dead things giving birth to dead things. Here he protests against intellectual bondage, as in the next two panels he protests against the political and spiritual bondage of our time. While thematically this panel is related to the fourth panel, with its pictures of the gods of the ancient world, it is tied up closely in color with the Cortez panel at the opposite end of this wall, the reiteration of the flame motif being especially striking.