The Decorative Panels

East End (decorative panels)

A flanking decorative panel, related in meaning, is associated with each of the main panels on the east end walls. At right angles to the "Modern Human Sacrifice", over the door leading into the northeast reading room, is a decorative panel in brilliant colors representing the trumpery of nationalism--helmets, eagles, lions, and other nationalistic symbols. Similarly, at right angles to the "Modern Migration of the Spirit" over a door leading into the southeast reading room, there is an associated panel in which piles of chains, and forlorn vultures picking at these, suggest institutional sterility and imprisonment of the spirit.

MODERN INDUSTRIAL MAN (central panels)

These panels on the south wall, opposite the delivery desk, were originally conceived as decorative panels representative of Dartmouth College, relating the epic murals to the local scene. The artist's final decision, however, was to tie the whole project together here in the center with a composition of more universal significance. Orozco has consequently painted here a representation of modern industrial man for whom and by whom the new culture prophesied in the "Return of Quetzalcoatl" must be created. The symbols of iron and steel on the projecting walls indicate the distinguishing characteristics of modern man as contrasted with the essentially stone-age civilization represented in the west wing. The central panel depicts intellectual labor in the use of the new leisure.

MISCELLANEOUS DECORATIVE PANELS

Several decorative panels serve to tie up the different parts of the color composition. Over the west end door a serpent panel (introducing a recurrent symbol of primitive deity) refers in bright red and luminous green to the high color key of the concluding panels at the opposite end. On the narrow projecting walls, separating the delivery desk area from the two wings, twin decorative panels face into the wings. The pair of panels in the west wing depict totem poles representing the aboriginal civilization of the North, while the panels in the east wing represent machinery as the predominating element in post-Columbian civilization. The twin west wing panels, which, for the observer in the west wing, frame the east end wall panels, are painted in the color key of these east end walls. Similarly, the decorative panels in the east wing refer in color to the west end walls, thus knitting together the two halves of the composition.