“The Torment of Cuauhtémoc” and “Apotheosis of Cuauhtémoc” are two murals at the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts that were painted in 1950-51 by David Alfaro Siqueiros. One of his murals (“Apotheosis of Cuauhtémoc”) shows what he would have wished would have been the story, where the Aztec emperor leads his people to defeat the Spanish army; while the other mural shows what the conquest of the Spanish over the Aztec truly was like, painful and inhumane.

In “the Torment of Cuauhtémoc”, Siqueiros depicts the violence that came with the Spanish conquistadors, it shows the Spanish torturing the Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc, to get him to indicate the location of where the treasure of Montezuma was hidden. They tortured him by burning his feet, yet he shows no physical pain but rather an emotional pain. Beside Cuauhtémoc, there is a man that is crying and praying as if to get out of such punishment. To the right, there is a female that seems to be covered in blood; she also resembles the mother of Jesus when her son was being crucified, begging for her son to stop feeling such torture. This makes Cuauhtémoc seem godlike and as a symbol of patriotism, a symbol that would be used after the Mexican revolution in many works of muralists at the time. Using the last Aztec emperor as a symbol, allowed for the past to be brought back, inspiration waiving in to push Mexicans to fight for their roots. The Spanish army looks like they are not human, as if only empty shells with no souls; such lack of humanity allows them to continue doing the damages that they committed. There is also a dog that seems to bring a bit of a conclusion that they are as human as the Aztecs were, it shows how they are rabid animals like such canine they have on the side.

In the “Apotheosis of Cuauhtémoc”, the “what if?” question comes to be. Siqueiros shows what it would be like if Cuauhtémoc’s army had defeated the Spanish army if they had succeeded with power and strength to keep invaders off. This mural depicts a positive patriotic feeling, showing Cuauhtémoc defeating the Spanish (that are symbolized by the half human half horse creature that is stabbed in the chest). Such mural depicts the resistance of the Aztecs to colonization, the persistence they possessed but was not enough to defeat the Spanish.

Both murals were done with pyroxylin on masonite, allowing Siqueiros to create a very harsh line style that creates a bloody, heroic and gloomy mood. His technique consists of harsh lines, the use of bright red, yellow, orange, blacks and greys that depict both history and emotion. His use of pyroxylin was a very individualistic material choice that truly picked him out of the crowd.