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Story of a Life
By admin | October 19, 2010
Self-Portrait as a Tehuana, 1943
Frida Kahlo loved her country very much. She often wore Mexican costume and jewelry. Here she has painted herself wearing the costume of a Mexican Indian woman belonging to the Tehuana people. The women were confident and proud, just like Frida herself. On her forehead, you can see the picture of a man. It is the artist Diego Rivera, whom Frida married when she was 23 years old.
Frida Kahlo was an incredibly amazing woman. She tells us a great deal about herself and her life in her paintings.
Her life was filled with physical as well as emotional pain. She endured more in her short life than most people will ever have to face. But she endured. She put her emotions into her painting, and as it were, she wore her heart on her canvas. Her work is a rare blend of true emotion, heartbreak, love, and life, as well as death.
It was not easy: when she was a child, Frida Kahlo suffered from polio, and then, when she was 18, she broke her spine in a traffic accident. She had to spend many months in hospital. In order to fill in the hours of boredom, she started to paint. Painting finally became her profession. She never really recovered from the accident. She had to have lots of operations and she was constantly in pain. She portrayed the events in her life, her experiences, and her longings in her pictures.
Most of her paintings were self-portraits. She said, “I paint self-portraits because I am the person I know best. I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other considerations.” Her paintings, like Tori Amos’s music, are very open and honest. They reflect her emotions, the events in her life, changes in her feelings – whether good or bad. She recorded her life in paint. Her imagery and style were very original, dramatic, and courageous. Her husband, the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, said, “Frida is the only example in the history of art of an artist who tore open her chest and heart to reveal the biological truth of her feelings. The only woman who has expressed in her work an art of the feelings, functions, and creative power of woman.”
Frida lived her life in Mexico. Her mother was a Mexican catholic; her father a European atheist. She was beautiful, spirited, and bold. She was proud of her Mexican roots and often dressed in bright, unique Tehuana costume. Clothing had an important role in her self-presentation. Her Mexicanism was also reflected in her painting. She married Diego Rivera, a union which, according to her parents, was like that between an elephant and a dove. Diego was fat, ugly, and much older than Frida, but she loved and admired him. However, he frequently had affairs with other women, including Frida’s sister. This caused Frida a lot of pain, but she retaliated: she had affairs of her own, with men and with women. The most notable of her lovers was Leon Trotsky, the great Russian revolutionary who spent time with Frida and Diego in Mexico while in exile. Frida had a seductive effect on many people and charmed everyone. People loved her beauty, personality, and talent. She was also known for her crass sense of humor, often fond of telling dirty jokes and cussing (which she got away with at high-society parties in America by pretending she didn’t know what the bad words meant in English). She gained success as an artist with exhibitions in New York and Paris, becoming friends with the Surrealists and especially with Pablo Picasso, who was a big admirer of her work.
Topics: All Posts, Arts, Famous People | 1 Comment »
October 19th, 2010 at 2:51 am
[...] looked at this painting (above, Frida Kahlo with Monkey and also Self-portrait of Frida Kahlo) from the book and he was scared! Each time he saw this painting, he would turn his head away from [...]