Man of fire, J.C. Orozco / MacKinley Helm

Helm is a San Miguel de Allende author.

Since it is impossible to say with any certainty what makes a painter or why he paints as he does, Mr. Helm has wisely confined his “interpretative memoir" of the great Mexican moralist to the influences that can be easily detected in Orozco’s work or that the painter himself acknowledged. These provide a workable rule of thumb and an interesting book, with sidelights on other Mexican painters, polities, revolutions, and the technique of mural painting, Mr. Helm’s style is strange in one respect. He can convey the quality of a painting quite clearly, which is not an easy thing to do, but he is inclined to tackle simple facts of time and place the hard way, making them a real problem in comprehension for the reader. The book includes a large number of plates, several in color, calculated to make anyone with a taste for murals in the grand style go out and buy a ticket to Mexico at once.

English