The Inspiration of Frida Kahlo Essay

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)

If we consider the art of Frida Kahlo, we cannot ignore her life which reflects into it at all times. A lover of her art is familiar to her expressive face- the monobrow and the slight moustache, long black hair, and her full lips.

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

Frida was a very skilled painter who did mainly self-portraits where she expressed her feelings and portrayed herself in unconventional ways. Frida would take some of the events of her life and paint them. For example, Frida painted the auto accident she was in that left her with traumatizing pain, the miscarriages she suffered as a result of the accident, the heartbreak she

Frida from one side to the other at the level of the pelvis (104). Frida Kahlo was left with a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, several broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and eleven fractures in her right leg. In addition her right foot was dislocated and crushed, and her shoulder was out of joint. For a month, Frida was forced to stay flat on her back, encased in a plaster cast and enclosed in a boxlike structure. The steel handrail from the tram had literally gone through her body at the level of the abdomen; entering on the left side, it had gone out through the vagina. Due to this accident, Frida underwent thirty different operations and three miscarriages. It was during this time that Frida Kahlo discovered her talent for painting and drawing, also during this challenging time for her she produced "The Broken Spine". Having to depend on everyone but herself, Kahlo portrays herself as weak and helpless. She depicts her self-portrait with metal rods supporting her broken spine. Although Frida's recovery was miraculous, she did have relapses of tremendous pain and fatigue all throughout her life, which cause her to be hospitalized for long periods of time, bedridden at times (106). She underwent tremendous stress

Later on, she took a job to lift the financial burdens of her family and was the paid apprentice of Fernando Fernandez who employed her to copy prints and drawings. He was surprised by her innate talent in art and praised Kahlo's work under him. Despite this, she felt no need to be a professional artist and saw art as a mere hobby (Souter 19). On September 17 1925, there was a collision between a bus and a streetcar. This accident left Frida Kahlo bed-ridden for several months because of her many fractures and dislocated legs. To end her boredom she started painting, borrowing oil paint from her father and asking for an easel from her mother (Kettenmann 17 and 18). Her paintings like Self-portrait in a Velvet Dress and Portait of My Sister Cristina were mainly influenced by European art unlike her later works (Kettenmann 21). This was because of the art books she studied mainly focused on the Italian Renaissance. Her friends even nicknamed her early works as her 'Boticelli' because of its similarities to Boticelli's females (Bauer

Carl Sandburg describes Chicago as a tough and hefty city. Chicago is portrayed as a proud city, a city proud to be so “strong and cunning” whereas other cities of the time were not. Chicago is characterized by the people and workers who live in it. Sandburg loves Chicago even though it is a brutally tough city. Sandburg uses imagery, personification, and punctuation to characterize the city as an actual person.

Frida Kahlo was best known for her reflective self-portraits that defined the tragedies she'd endured. Explaining her affection for the style, Kahlo said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best.” Kahlo contracted Polio at the age of six which left her with a deformed foot, she was also Bed-bound while recovering from a grisly streetcar accident. Kahlo under went over 30 operations throughout her life; and over the years she painted a portrait of herself whenever she was troubled.

4. Frida Kahlo essentially became an international cultural icon, honored by many people, especially in Mexico. Her artwork withholds visual symbolism of all kinds of emotional and physical pain and most importantly she incorporated indigenous culture and her depiction of the female experience. Including illustrating the feelings of death, loneliness, pain, including the pain of miscarriages, failed marriage, and the aftermath of tragic accidents. Through her imagery, she was able to portray her life experiences. She would include specific elements that symbolized something greater. Throughout the process of analyzing all different aspects of Frida Kahlo’s paintings, it provided a deeper understanding to each painting.

The painting shows two different personalities, one in traditional Tehuana dress with a broken heart who is sitting next to the other, a modern European dressed Frida Kahlo. According to Amy Stechler, a director from PBS, she describes the artwork as a, “modern dressed Frida, blood drips onto her crisp white dress, a possible reminder of her abortions, miscarriages and many surgeries, as well as the physical pain felt at the loss of Rivera”(Stechler). During her previous years, Kahlo was not able bear a child due to the accident leaving her infertile. In her traditional Mexican formal wear, Kahlo carries an egg shaped locket of Rivera’s picture on her lap along with a long red vein that resembles an umbilical cord.

Frida is a 2002 film by Julie Taymor that mirrors the life of esteemed artist Frida Kahlo. The first scene of the movie serves only to foreshadow the last scene of the movie, depicting Kahlo lying on bed, being loaded onto the back of a truck. The movie then flashes to the Kahlo’s younger days in 1922 when she was around fifteen years of age. She is shown in a school where she gathers friends to watch Diego Riviera work, this yet again portrays an important facet of Kahlo’s future. We then learn of Kahlo’s relationship with a boy named Alex, a both Physical and emotional relationship. A following scene shows Frida admiring the photos of a photographer who is shortly revealed to be her father. In true fashion Frida is then seen observing a mural on the walls of the school. Alex comes to get her before the two miss the bus, shortly after the film shows Alex and Frida catching up to a bus and jumping on. When the bus they are on passes another the two busses collide and the bus holding Kahlo is propelled into the side of a stone building, breaking a multitude of her bones, and leaving her in a sleep state for three weeks. The doctors inform Frida and her family that she will most likely not walk again and it is a miracle she survived. When Kahlo is released from the hospital we get the first glimpse of Frida creating her own art, and see her heart being broken when Alex informs her he is leaving. Kahlo then begins to fill her cast with paintings of butterflies. When she is

Postpartum depression is one of the most commons disorders in the early few weeks of child birth. According to the American Psychology Association almost 1 in 7 women are Likely to inherit the disorder. Postpartum depression is caused by the rapid drop of estrogen and progestrone hormone following the birth of a child. The effects include excessive crying without reasoning, irritability, anxiety, loss of memory, and the inability to focus. Within the early weeks of child birth it is expected for a mother embrace her baby however;  The symptoms of postpartum depression can cause intrusive thoughts that can harm both mother and child. Many women suffer from the postpartum due to the lack of a support system. It is likely that if a mother doesn't

Frida Kahlo was a half-mexican, half-hungarian painter of the 20th century born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón in Coyoacán, Mexico City on July 6, 1907. During her short lived life, she had many accomplishments. She was a surrealist artist whos paintings reflected her thoughts and feelings. Her creative style was always amazing but confusing. Unfortunately, she lived most of her artistic life in the shadow of her husband, Diego Rivera, and her work was not truly recognized until after her death.

Frida's artwork has always interested me in many ways. Her paintings are so much more than self-portraits and surrealism. She illustrates her life and the struggles she goes through, even if most would like to ignore the darker aspects of life. The theme of suffering permeates Frida’s self-portraits and often explicitly comprises their subject matter. She visually depicts physical and psychological struggles through the distortions of her body, which is fragmented, doubled, turned inside-out, and merged with non-human elements. She shows me that I can be strong through life even when I'm hurting physically and emotionally. Frida challenged herself and her