Analysis Of Frida Kahlo

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.

Throughout her career, Frida had shown many different themes of her life through her paintings. It seems clear, through analyzation of her paintings, that Frida lived something of a double life. Frida paints herself in distinctly different ways at times, sometimes she is a beautiful woman with strength like iron, and sometimes she is a frail damsel who has been broken already and will be broken again. Contrasting paintings include Self Portrait with Monkeys (Kahlo, 1) and Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace, Diego and I (Kahlo, 1) and The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, Diego, and Mr. Xolotl (Kahlo, 1). All of these paintings show that not only is there a contrast in her personality, in fact, Frida’s is actually two different people, as she paints it.

Frida Kahlo was one of the most fascinating visual artists of the nineteenth century. Her art and life were filled with pain that was both emotional and physical which she expressed through her paintings. Frida was her art. Frida did not conform to most cultural norms or gender roles in her life time, she was a free spirit trapped in an invalid body. While she did not assume very much acclaim during her lifetime she did manage to be very well traveled even though she was born and died in the same home. She eventually developed a cult-like following in the nineteen-eighties and nineties. She has become a poster girl for modern feminism and a political force of her own time, through all of her physical pain and heartache she was able to

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

All Artist are influenced by their experience of the world, their personal and cultural beginings and stories. The history and life experience of an artist flows though their work influencing their symbols, style and meaning. Frida Khalo and Gordon Bennett are rich of example this, their art is filled with strong connection to their cultural and personal backgrounds. Khalo had a troubled life of pain and loss; the story is woven through her paintings, where Bennett art is a comment on Australian cultura and the story of his people, not just himself. The art working Diego and I (1946) and Self portrait -But I always wanted to be one of the good guys (1990) are great examples of these artist drawing on their pass.

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.

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)

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 Kahlo, she never intended to become a painter. Kahlo was aspired to become a doctor as a young woman, but after a horrible accident at the age of 18, it left her mentally, as well as physically scared for life. This event had totally changed her life forever. The theme in almost all of Frida’s painting was her own life. Her paintings were based on events took place during her lifetime. As we can see in many of Frida’s paintings, especially in her self-portraits, it expresses her own personal emotions along with feelings about an event that happened in her life, such as her physical condition, her lack of ability to conceive children of her own, her ideology of life and nature, and most important of all, it was her unstable relationship with her husband Diego. Somewhere between the movement of surrealism, realism and symbolism in the art of Frida Kahlo, she was able to bring out tenderness, femininity, reality, cruelty and suffering within her paintings.

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.

Frida Kahlo's influence still lingers around the world. Even with Frida dead for almost two decades, she is still celebrated and thought of as an idol. Frida Kahlo was an artist in many different ways. Besides Frida's incredible talent to paint surrealist thoughts and emotions on canvas, she also was and artist in her mind and body. Frida's attire of traditional Mexican clothing, which consisted of long, colorful dresses and exotic jewelry, and her thick connection eyebrows, became her trademark. To the public, Frida Kahlo appeared to be full of spirit and joy. She walked through life happily, with a smile glued to her face. However, her feelings of anguish, anger, unhappiness of her painful miscarriages, and

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

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

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.

Frida Kahlo’s “The Two Fridas” is a manifestation of heartbreak, inner human pain, rejection of colonialism, and emotional journey. An oil on canvas made in 1939 in the midst of Frida Kahlo’s divorce from Diego Rivera, this painting embodied Frida Kahlo’s progression at this time in her life, dealing with what she is and what she wishes to be; as well as setting out how she wishes to do it. An ode to melancholy and overcoming adversity, “The Two Fridas” is a universal, eternal reminder of human capability.