The Themes Of Art In Frida Kahlo's Living With Art

Both of these paintings show the love and desire to hold on to ones heritage and family traditions which is extremely important in Hispanic families. Both with vivid colors and images. In Kahlo’s “Self Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States”, even though she is a Mexican woman living in a non-Mexican country, she is able to accept both sides and hold on to her own Mexican heritage and culture which it seems she preferred. In Garza’s “Camas Para Sueños”(Beds for Dreams), Garza is showing the love and closeness she had with her sister and how her mother allowed them to dream and reach after those dreams as they kept

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

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.

Peach fuzz below her nose, unibrow perched upon her lower forehead, and thin, black hair; all of these proponents make up Frida Kahlo’s looks, but do not so easily make up her character and symbolic nature. There is much to be said about Frida Kahlo and her spectacular work. Many people see Frida not only as a master artist, which she is, but also a strong woman who never let the struggles of her life get in the way of her dreams. Out of every painting she ever constructed, one of her most captivating paintings was The Dream or El Sueno. This is a beautiful painting where Frida took advantage of her beautiful and masterful painting style to express many different themes and underlying tones. When it comes to this painting, there is a lot 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

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.

CLS- Aside from including herself into paintings, she mixes aspects of Mexican culture into her images and each figure has a symbolic meaning relating either to her life or husband.

In Frida Kahlo’s painting, A Few Small Nips, a woman lies mostly naked on white sheets. She has on one high-heeled shoe, and a rumpled sock. She has been sliced and poked by the knife that the man standing above her is holding. The sheets are covered in blood, her body is covered in blood, and the floor is covered in the blood. The woman is clearly dead, and the man standing above her is relaxed, pleased, with his left hand resting comfortably in his pocket. The expression on the man’s

"The Hybrid Sources of Frida Kahlo," explains what the author thinks Kahlo is trying to communicate with her self-portrait. The author mentions how Kahlo could've been inspired by a French artist. Zarobell says, "It seems odd for an artist from Mexico, whose territory includes tropical jungles, to be generating jungle imagery modeled on that of a modern Parisian" (Zarobell). The author then says that the painting was Kahlo's creation of her world, in this case, her jungle. I agree with Zarobell to a certain point, although Kahlo doesn't paint the jungle behind her as realistic as it could be, it does not distract me from the painting. I agree with Zarobell when he mentions that the painting is the artist's views or thoughts. Kahlo's jungle shows, this since she had seen the tropical jungles, Kahlo does what she wanted with the subject which differs from the realistic image. There are many symbols the painting incorporates which have a deeper meaning that Zarobell does not capture in his review. In "The New Yorker," Peter Schjeldahl, talks about the exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden "Frida Kahlo: Art

“Self-Portrait with Monkeys” was painted by Frida Kahlo in 1943. Frida was born in Coyocan, Mexico in 1907 (Morrison). She was one of six daughters. At the age of six, she contracted polio and at the age of eighteen she was in a serious accident. After the wreck, she was unable to complete her testing in school. She would later marry another famous artist, Diego Rivera. They would later divorce around the time of Kahlo gaining fame. Her art often had a dark theme, including the piece “Self-Portrait with Monkeys.” Her work is considered primitivism, “indigenism” and Surrealism (“Frida Kahlo Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works”).

Moving away from her unique style of over-emphasizing facial hair, Kahlo paints herself to be sitting comfortably in a relaxed position. Drawing references from her physical condition at the time, it was anything but peaceful.Despite the political nature in the painting, she was still able to maintain a Mexican inspired color palette; using colors such as brown, rust, orange and other earthy dark shades to project her message toward the

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 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

Her mother was a devout Catholic and passed these strong values down to her daughter, Frida. This can be seen through the crown of thorns around her neck rather than her head, showing herself as a Christian Martyr. The subtle blood that is trickling down her neck may represent that of her ongoing pain through her divorce. The contrasting butterflies on her headdress and bright background of leaves are suggestive of resurrection. Over the left-hand side, a monkey can be seen distracted playing with its hands. It was also a gift from Diego and a symbol of the devil she feels he is. As seen on her left-hand side a Black Cat can be noticed staring down the Hummingbird. Perhaps it is ready to feast on the good as it is a symbol of bad luck. She had experienced great trauma and pain in her life and this could be seen as the bad luck symbolised through the cat. To leave a blank background would be unlike Kahlo; the bright and varied shades of greens and yellows seem to show a wall of uncontrolled nature, possibly expressing her feelings at the time. Looking to the upper half of the painting Dragonflies and Butterflies fly around her hair that is intertwined with cloth, delineating a figure eight like crown filled with purples and maroon. We see the life filled Dragonflies and Butterflies

The history of art dates back to ancient times. Artwork can be, and was, found around the world. What makes art interesting is that it can be created in any way, shape or form with any materials. It seems that the artwork can also tell us a lot about the artist. Art seems to be simply, a direct, visual reflection of the artist’s life. Therefore, one can assume that an artist’s life experiences and beliefs directly influence their art. If we look at examples from different periods of art we will be able to see the connection between the artist and the art.