(Photo : Instagram)
Snapshot from: Fabian Chairez Official Instagram Account

A painting in one of Mexico City's premiere arts venues, the Fine Arts Palace, depicting Emiliano Zapata in a rather unusual manner became the center of protests that erupted around the museum on Tuesday, according to a report by NBC.

Zapanta is known for leading farmers demanding land rights in the 1910 to 1917 revolution.

Zapata's typical image as an ultra-macho man oozing with masculinity with his with a rifle or pistol, and an ammunition belt as shown in other paintings and artworks, is altered by Mexican painter Fabian Chairez in his work, titled La Revolución. In the said painting, Zapata is atop an aroused white stallion, nude and turning away from the viewer in a seductive pose. He wears nothing but a pair of black heels, a pink sombrero, and a ribbon bearing the red, white, and green which are colors of Mexico's flag wrapped around his torso.

Earlier this year, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared 2019 the 'Year of Zapata,' commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Mexican revolutionizer's death in 1919. In line with this, various exhibition of works has been staged throughout Mexico City presenting alternative takes on the Mexican Revolution. This includes Chairez's painting in Fine Arts Palace.

The Mexican revolution hero's descendants perceive this as an insult saying the painting "depicting him as gay" degenerates his legacy.

On Tuesday, some of Zapata's descendants led about 100 farmers to block the entrance of the museum to protest against the exhibit.

 "This isn't freedom of expression, it is debauchery ... that is degrading. They can't exhibit our history that way," said Antonio Medrano, spokesman for the protesters. "They can't permit this kind of mockery."

Jorge Zapata Gonzalez, Zapata's grandson said the painting should be removed or their family would sue the museum.

"We are not going to allow this," said Gonzalez. "For us as relatives, this denigrates the figure of our general - depicting him as gay."

 "Zapata's masculinity is glorified," Cháirez told BBC. He noted, he specifically set out to go against the grain with his depiction of Zapata.

Meanwhile, about a dozen counter protesters showed up to defend sexual diversity, which led to a rumble between the two groups.

In the recent decades, there have been several published apocryphal tales of a gay romances involving Zapata, but historians said there is little evidence to support the stories, according to The Guardian.

The controversy had brought in a lot of visitors to the museum, according to Luis Vargas Santiago, curator of the exhibit. He added, a painting which is just an artistic representation, reopens debates about pressing issues in Mexican society like homosexuality.

While many of Zapanta's relatives protested, Vargas Santiago notes there are still some of his kin who expressed support for the exhibition.

On Wednesday, President López Obrador said that the painting didn't bother him, "but I'm not a member of the Zapata family." He added that he already appointed the culture ministry to find a solution to the family's concerns.

In a tweet, Government spokesman Jesús Ramírez Cuevas expressed the government's commitment "to artistic freedom and respect for diversity."

"Yes to freedom, no to censorship. Yes to respect, no to violence," he posted.