Orozco was the most complex of the Mexican muralists, fond of the theme of human suffering, but less realistic and more fascinated by machines than Rivera.

In his autobiography, Orozco confesses, "I would stop [on my way to and from school] and spend a few enchanted minutes in watching [Posada]...

This was the push that first set my imagination in motion and impelled me to cover paper with my earliest little figures; this was my awakening to the existence of the art of painting."

When the revolutionary factions split in 1914 after Victoriano Huerta was ousted, Orozco supported Carranza and General Álvaro Obregón against Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

While Rivera was a bold, optimistic figure, touting the glory of the revolution, Orozco was less comfortable with the bloody toll the social movement was taking.

All three artists, as well as the painter Rufino Tamayo, experimented with fresco on large walls, and elevated the art of the mural.

Between 1922 and 1924, Orozco painted the murals Maternity, Man in Battle Against Nature, Christ Destroys His Cross, Destruction of the Old Order, The Aristocrats, The Trench and The Trinity at the National Preparatory School.

[12] Remaining in Mexico, Orozco painted in Guadalajara, Jalisco, the mural The People and Their False Leaders in the Government Palace.

Orozco painted his fresco The Epic of American Civilization in the lower level of Dartmouth College's Baker Memorial Library.

The Escuela Nacional Preparatoria commissioned him in February 1923; however, his earlier panels created serious political conflict, causing him to cease his work, like Siqueiros'.

[15] On the first floor of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria are a series of murals, including The Trench, The Destruction of the Old Order, Maternity, The Strike, The Trinity, and The Banquet of the Rich.

[17] The Trench is described as a "confirmation of what an extraordinary and powerful painter Orozco would turn out to be"[18] and is compared to the mural The Farewell, "where the initial impression is of a bloody action scene of great melodrama.

Two of the men appear to have died, even though no wounds are present on their bodies, and a third is kneeling while covering his face with his left arm.

[20] In this mural, the viewer sees a depiction of the rich, whose faces and bodies are obviously distorted, which is meant "to represent their decadence and abuses of power" and the working class.

This point is further exemplified by the view of the rich who can look down on the working class and continue to live a life of decadence without consequences.

"[16] While this mural is not aesthetically pleasing, with its repulsive distorted characters, it evokes thought within the spectator about their personal situation as a member of the working class or of the privileged bourgeois.

[16] The third story, created between 1924 and 1926, includes the murals, Women, The Grave Digger, The Blessing, The Workers, The Farewell, The Family, and The Revolutionaries.

"[16] Additional murals, completed by Orozco in 1924–1926, are "painted on the walls and rising overheads of the ground floor," including Aboriginal Races, Franciscans Helping the Sick, The Youth and Cortés and Malinche.

"This union between the Spanish European conquistador and his female Indian mistress was an incontestable historical fact"[18] and is demonstrated as the two bodies join into one.

Orozoco works to represent the inequities present between this relationship by portraying Cortés' gestures as domineering and Malinche's as subordinate.

This image serves as a synthesis of the Spanish colonization of Mexico, the critical role Malinche played, and the beginning of the mestizo in Mexican history.