Essay On Frida Kahlo

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

Following a tragic bus accident that left Kahlo severely injured and bedridden for a period of time, she was introduced to painting by her father. He

Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous female painters to originate from the twentieth century, and for good reason. Her art is filled with beauty and creativity, but Frida’s main source of fame comes from the emotions that these paintings invoke, rather than the actual paintings. This is because Frida put herself into every painting she did, leaving traces of her presence all throughout this world and these traces remain long after her physical departure. Frida was a very peculiar and unique individual, hence, Frida’s definition of what a person is, or rather, what a self is, follows accordingly. The self is the reality that one conceives, and this self will live long after the physical body dies, continuing on as long as their

People may refer to Frida Kahlo as the lady with the unibrow, but others refer to her as one the greatest Mexican painters. She was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyocoan Mexico. When she was about 6 she was diagnosed with polio which is a highly contagious viral infection that can lead to paralysis, breathing problems, or even death. (Crosta 1) Due to polio she was bedridden for 9 months. Frida attended the National Preparatory School where she first noticed Diego Rivera who is a famous muralist. At this time she fell in love with another man Alejandro Gomez Arias. She and Alejandro were on a trip when a monumental moment happened which will change her life forever…. (Frida Kahlo Biography 1)

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.

"It is impossible to separate the life and work of this extraordinary person, her paintings are her biography." This was announces in 1953 by a local critic after her one and only solo exhibition in Mexico (www.fridakahlo.com). Frida Kahlo was not only a magnificent painter, but also a representation of her birth country Mexico, through her meaningful paintings. While in the midst of nobody but herself, Frida found great inspiration to paint during the early to mid 1900’s. Her passion for painting came from her traffic accident as a teenager, which left her paralyzed due to fractures in her spine and pelvis. Even before the traffic accident, she contracted polio at the age of six in the suburbs of Mexico City where she grew up. Her image

A childhood for most adults is a time of enjoyment and freedom. Unfortunately that enjoyable time was shortened for Kahlo, molding her into the passionate, spirited artist the world has come to know. Kahlo was born in 1907 in a Mexican town called Coyoacán to Matilde Calderón and Guillermo Kahlo, who was also an artist. At age six Kahlo endured her first health upset that set the tone for the rest of her life. She contracted polio which crippled her right leg causing it to become

Frida suffered immensely, died young, and spoke directly through her paintings. All the physical and spiritual sufferings Frida experienced is mirrored in her art. Most of Frida’s paintings are collages of pain. Obsessed with her health and grief, she created portraits that were intense and emotional.

In Frida, a Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera, Frida Kahlo is a famous Mexican artist who didn’t find fame until near the end of her life. Herrera even says “The artist, dressed in her favorite Mexican costume, was carried on a hospital stretcher to her four-post bed, which had been installed in the gallery that afternoon”(33). The quote it self shows how much Frida valued her art that she would go see it in a gallery even on near death. She implemented her views into her horrific and dramatic art. Herrera the goes on to say “What passed through Frida Kahlo’s head and into her art was some of the most original and dramatic imagery of the twentieth century”(34).

This accident was considered to be the most influential tragedy towards her artwork and her life. Kahlo suffered multiple fractures throughout her body as well as a crushed pelvis leaving her to spend nine months in the a hospital bed and a plaster corset. This long recovery would lead her to experimenting with her artistic ability. Her father had given her a set of paints while she remained in her long recovery at the hospital. Kahlo would spend hours studying herself. She would confront the questions that had surfaced due to her trauma such as dissociation from identity, death, and interiority. This internal experience of self-discovery unfolded into the central qualities of Kahlo’s

Frida Kahlo is a celebrated Mexican artist that came from a multi-racial background. Her heritage and other pivotal moments in he life would later be portrayed in many of the fifty-five self-portraits she would paint during her life. Kahlo began painting while in bed recovering from a bus accident that not only left her in a body cast for three months, but with never ending pain throughout her life. Kahlo would begin to pursue the selling and exhibition of artwork. This lead Frida to seek out painter Diego Rivera, hoping that in him she could find a mentor and guide into the art world. They married in 1929 and so began a tumultuous marriage full of infidelities and heartache. Much that happened during their marriage would become subject matter for her painting later deemed part of Surrealism. “Though not an official member of Surrealism, Kahlo's bizarre imagery along with her linear style was reminiscent of Surrealist” paintings, she is often said to be a surrealist painter, through she did not identify with the movement herself. (theartstory.org) After a live of loss, martial owes, and pain, Frida died in 1954, at the age of forty-seven, leaving behind a legacy of painting that spoke volumes concerning her emotion and state of

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

Frida was born as Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón in 1907 in Coyoacán, México. Even though, she was born in 1907 she insisted that she was born in 1910 because she had strong political affiliations and wanted to be associated with the Mexican Revolution. Her father was Guillermo Kahlo, a German Jewish photographer that migrated to Mexico and later married his second wife, Matilde Calderón who was Frida’s mother. At age six Frida had contracted a serious disease, Polio. This disease initiated the path of

Frida Kahlo is a world-renowned Mexican painter known for her shocking self-portaits filled with painful imagery. Her artwork was seen by many as surrealist and socialist, but she refused the labels put on herself. Until today, her works have been able to exude the same playful and wild feel as before (Fisher n.p). Her legacy as a painter has attracted prominent people like Madonna who has confessed her admiration for the painter. Not only that but fashion designers are frequently inspired by her iconic Tijuana dresses while her paintings have been priced at more than three million dollars (Bauer 115).

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.