Frida Kahlo Essay

Frida Kahlo was a very talented Mexican artist that revolutionized art at a very young age. Her work is still idolized and celebrated today and is studied by many artists, institutes of higher education, museums, and fans. Kahlo was born in the town of Coyoacan, Mexico on July the sixth in the year of 1907 (Kettenmann 3). She made around 143 paintings, and out of those 143 paintings, 55 were self-portraits that included symbolism of her physical and emotion pain. Furthermore, in her portraits she used symbolism to express her wounds and sexuality. She use to say: “I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality” (Fuentes 41). Her paintings style include of vibrant colors and was heavily influenced

There is ongoing speculation that Frida Kahlo would have never came to be as well known if it wasn’t for the marriage to another Famous Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Although both had different styles of painting, Frida Kahlo was being rediscovered by many particular women because a lot of herself inflicting paintings connected to a big audience of feminists. After living under the shadow of her husband she was becoming even more famous than Diego Rivera. Frida Kahlo experienced a lot of adversity throughout her entire life. Many of the events she experienced reflected all of her art work. In order to understand who Frida Kahlo was, it is important to understand first, about her accidents , second, her relationship with Diego, Lastly, her Art

Matilde Calderón y González, Kahlo’s mother, was of mixed Amerindian and Spanish ancestry. When she was younger she had fallen deeply in love with a man who committed suicide. She committed her life to Catholicism to deal with the pain, but never fully recovered and was often unhappy. Kahlo’s most well-known sister, Cristina Kahlo, was her closest friend, and would later become her biggest rival. Growing up, Kahlo suffered many physical setbacks.

Rivera encouraged Kahlo to develop her paintings and herself as a work of art (“The Life”). Although Kahlo and Rivera had faced infidelities and affairs Kahlo expressed her pain through her paintings. “Even though their marriage suffered great pain, the desire to be together never died out” (“The Life”). “Being the wife of Rivera is the most marvelous thing in the world… I let him play matrimony with other women.

1. Frida Kahlo is one not only Mexico's most iconic artists, but one of the world's most iconic artists as well. She was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyocoan Mexico City, Mexico. Her father was of German descent and migrated to Mexico where he met her mother, who was half Spanish and half AmerIndian. She also had three sisters. Frida was always very close to her father, and was very proud of her Mexican heritage. During her childhood, she contracted a disease called Polio. She was very ill and had to stay in bed for a whole 9 months. The disease caused her right leg to become much skinnier and weaker than the left one. She had a permanent limp because of it and always wore long skirts to hide it. She met her future husband, Diego Rivera, when she was in preparatory school. One day in 1922, she was on a Bus and got in a horrific accident. She was severely injured, as a steel rail impaled her through the hip. During her period of recovery is when she began to paint her famous self-portraits. Frida and Diego reconnected in 1928 and them married in 1929. Their marriage, however, wasn't a healthy one. Diego cheated on Frida many times and they lived in separate houses. Frida, given her condition was always very depressed. She sadly passed away in 1954. Her death was reported to be caused by a pulmonary embolism, but many suspect her death may not have been accidental.

Frida Kahlo was married to the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. While married to Rivera, Frida gave up painting. She loved Diego Rivera very much and wanted to be important to him. Frida knew that his murals were the number one in his life. Once she saw the reality that she would always come after Diego’s art, she became obsessed with trying to be number one, and devoted her life to being with him.

Frida Khalo was born in Mexico City, has a young woman she was in a bus accident causing her to have life long injuries and pain. The time spent bedridden recovering, allowed her to develop her painting skill. Khalo had deep connection to her culture and heritage using symbols within her work. In 1928 Khalo married Diego Rivera a fellow artist their relationship was turbulent. Diego cheated on her with many other women that effect Khalo and her Art. Due to her injuries, Khalo could never carry a child to full term, this was

During their travel the street car they were riding in was hit by a bus and a steel handrail went straight through her hip, fracturing her pelvis and spine. She endured a long painful recovery and coped by painting. Frida said “I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best.” After painting a few pieces she met back up with Diego to view her work. They clicked immediately and go married only a year later. They had a very rough relationship. They would travel around everywhere and Diego would have affairs which left Frida heartbroken, but she always stayed. Due to her fractured pelvis she was unable to have children and encountered 2 miscarriages which killed her emotionally. (Frida Kahlo Biography 2)

Kahlo carefully considers all elements of her work, including the colours used. This is evident in her choice of symbols to convey a very intricate meaning. In this particular painting the natural elements are heavily integrated into the composition; surrounding Kahlo are vines linking her to nature itself. Kahlo was unable to bear children and her link here to nature, especially with the presence of so many monkeys (a traditional symbol of fertility), may represent her desire to be a part of this aspect of nature. Fertility has a huge presence in this painting as the flower, the white of her shirt, and the lush green vines all symbolise health, fertility and purity, none of which Kahlo herself possessed. Through her symbolism Kahlo created meaning and added emphasis on particular aspects of her life. Critics have likened her tendency to do this to a method of self-creation rather than self-expression. She places herself within a scenario she wishes to be in or a person she recreates herself as, in this painting for example, she would be using her engulfment in fertility symbols as a way of showing herself as fertile. Either way, the painting speaks very strongly of Kahlo's link to motherhood, through the local, Mexican symbols.

Frida Kahlo once said“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” There is no better person to say this than Kahlo, whose life was filled with pain and sadness. She was one of the most influential artists of her time, especially in the Mexican community.. The most important aspects of her life were her multicultural background, her tragic accident she survived as a teen, her relationship with Diego Rivera, her death, and her face as a product.

Frida attended a National Preparatory School in 1922 hoping to become a doctor. At the same school, she saw Diego Rivera, painting “The Creation” (“Biography.com”). Frida was inspired and approached Diego with her compliments. He told her to go home and return with a painting in one week for him to judge. When she did as he asked, he was very impressed with her artistic ability and they became close (“Frida Kahlo: Biography”). Their relationship progressed and then Frida got into her terrible bus accident.

In her painting, Henry Ford Hospital, she looks naked on a hospital bed with sevan items a fetus, a snail, a flower, a pelvis and others. All connected by red vein looking strings. This painting was about her second miscarriage that she had. When Kahlo and Rivera went to new york in 1933 they were surrounded by controversy. Rivera created a mural entitled Man at the Crossroads.

Frida kahlo was a famous Mexican artist whose life was filled with physical and emotional pain, yet her enthusiasm for art kept her alive which can be seen through the quote “I am not sick, I am broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint” (Brown, nd). Her work can be described as hard as steel, fine as a butterfly wing, lovable as a smile and cruel as the bitterness of life (Frida,2002). All her work was inspired by the nature around her and the exquisite artifacts of Mexico which is apparent in her use of dramatic symbolism and bright use of colors (Li, and Yoneta,2018). One of the most eye catching painting after her terrible bus accident is the self-portrait which was dedicated to Dr Eloesser and was done when she was half paralysed and painted herself from her position in bed, using a mirror and a wooden structure to hold her canvas.

The portrait depicts a nude Frida Kahlo standing in the foreground of the painting- with the exception of a sheet covering the lower half of her body- and a white corset wrapped around her chest. Frida’s chest is cut open, from the neck all the way down to her pelvis, revealing a half crumbled column with horizontal cracks along it to be in place of her spine. Frida’s body is riddled with nails piercing through her skin and dotting her face. Her long, dark hair hangs behind her shoulders with one side pushed behind her ear as tears stream down her face; however, her eyes hold a stoic gaze that cannot be broken. The background of the painting is a muddy brown earth lined with cracks, leading to a dark sea that meets with the sky. The fissures upon the earth resemble the cracks on Frida’s column as both emphasize the chaos and violence of the tragic incident she faced. Frida Kahlo was influenced by André Breton, a surrealist painter who emphasized Kahlo’s use of surrealism in her portraits, along with traditional Mexican roots and support from her husband Diego Rivera, a muralist. Both Frida Kahlo’s artwork and Hermenegildo Bustos’ work are similar in that both are representative of portrait style art. Also, Bustos’ portrait, The Portraiture of Bustos, reflects a mood of authority and a stoic gaze which Frida adopts in her portraits. She was also heavily influenced by José María Estrada and her painting, Portrait of a Young Woman with a Coral Necklace and Pink Dress. In Kahlo’s painting called, Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States, she imitated Estrada’s paining by using the same dress, necklace, and even angling the head in the same direction. By making simple changes, Frida hoped to incorporate Mexican elements into her portrait. Frida influenced many artists throughout her time in the 20th century and continues to pose as an idol and legacy

The painting is of two versions of Frida Kahlo, closely gripping hands and sharing one heart between them. They are dressed in contrary clothing, with the Frida on the left dressed in modern European garb, while the other to the right is in traditional Mexican clothing. When viewing the painting, we are immediately attracted to the left Frida, who has nearly all of the light in the painting shining down on her. Her European clothing, popular in Mexico at the time, feels very constricting for both the subject and the viewer,specifically the collar grasping her neck so very tightly. Her upright and fragile stance and her almost limp grasp of the second Frida’s is understandable as we see the gaping hole where her heart should be. The pulsating anatomy of her wound bleeds into the room, while her face is completely indifferent. A single vein connects the hole in left Frida to the heart of right Frida. In left Frida’s unclenched hand, a delicate pair of scissors, indicating that she had wretched the heart out of her own bosom. It is this connection that guides us to the Frida to the right, but not before we notice the background behind them. A gray and cloudy backdrop that seems to embody Kahlo’s emotional state at the time, it is hard to distinguish the right Frida from its murky depths. A shadow presiding all around her, the right Frida is dressed in a traditional Mexican dress, with a posture and facial expression completely identical to the other Frida’s. The most eye-catching feature of hers, however, is the pulsating heart that the left Frida is lacking beating out of her chest. This gruesome and oblivious picture is made only more extraordinary when we make out the object right Frida is