The Two Fridas

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

There is ongoing speculation that Frida Kahlo would have never came to be as well known if it wasn’t for the marriage to another Famous Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Although both had different styles of painting, Frida Kahlo was being rediscovered by many particular women because a lot of herself inflicting paintings connected to a big audience of feminists. After living under the shadow of her husband she was becoming even more famous than Diego Rivera. Frida Kahlo experienced a lot of adversity throughout her entire life. Many of the events she experienced reflected all of her art work. In order to understand who Frida Kahlo was, it is important to understand first, about her accidents , second, her relationship with Diego, Lastly, her Art

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

In the painting of “The Two Fridas” you automatically notice two women sitting down in a bench, holding hands with hearts connected with each other. The background looks as if she was outside since it looks like clouds and the floor is light brown. The first Kahlo has her hair up, has light makeup on, (she is whiter than than second woman, her mustache is shaved, and she put some lipstick.), the dress is white and has two different designs on top (her chest is more vintage while the arms are layer of laces). The middle portion of her dress has blood stains dripping downwards. Then at the very bottom there seems to be flowers like roses and little birds, and the heart she has seems to be damaged with white and black inside. The second Kahlo also has her hair up, now she doesn’t seem to have any type of makeup (she is a bit tanner than the first woman and she actually has mustache) she has a more natural look, the dress she is wearing has color to it, the top of the dress is blue with some yellow around the neck, arms, and in the lower stomach area then on the bottom of the dress it is brown but the very bottom is simple with no flowers, it is white with frills, and the heart she has looks more of a realistic. For the first Kahlo the blood vessels are going around her arm, up her shoulder, and around her neck going towards the second Frida heart. Once the blood vessels reaches

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.

Painting was the artistic escape route for Kahlo’s mind and body. To occupy her mind after the more than 30 surgeries, she began to paint as part of her recovery process. Fifty-five of her one hundred and forty-three paintings were self-portraits. These paintings were purposely painted in a naïve way to show vulnerability (“A Tribute to Frida Kahlo”). A few of her most famous works include: “Self-Portrait Between Mexico and the United States, 1932”, “My Dress Hangs There, 1933”, and

The painting portrays Two Fridas self-portraits of two different personalities, this was painted after her divorce from her husband Diego Rivera as she deeply loved her him but was betrayed. The artwork is one of Kahlo’s biggest artwork, which is subjected with double self-portrait of Two Fridas, with the size of 173.5 x 173 cm. The main objects in the artwork that catches it’s viewers eyes are the double self-portrait of Frida with the Tehuana (Mexican) and the European dress. The self- portrait and the two hearts on each self-portrait of Kahlo are

Frida Kahlo is a very interesting person whom has been through a lot in her short life. Though there is so much to say about the past of Frida Kahlo from her ghastly affair’s and man like tendencies. Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 and lived in a house that her father built in Mexico City (Tuchman). Kahlo was a hard working woman but who had a horrible temper. When Kahlo was engaged with Rivera at the age of twenty-one, her father even gave a warning to Rivera. That Frida was “a devil” and Rivera replied “I know it (Tuchman).” Throughout Kahlo’s life time she only produced around two- hundred paintings. Her paintings were all relatively still portraits of herself and of friends and family. She was good at creating hunting, and sensual original paintings and that fuse the elements of surrealism (Tuchman).

The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.” Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who has achieved great international popularity and is still admired as a feminist icon. Frida began this painting in August of 1940, the year she and Diego divorced, but didn’t finish it until 1943. “Her paintings tell stories – intimate, engaging, terrifying, and tragic ones.” This painting expresses Frida’s desire to possess Diego Rivera, who continues to betray her with his affairs with other woman.

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

The portrait depicts a nude Frida Kahlo standing in the foreground of the painting- with the exception of a sheet covering the lower half of her body- and a white corset wrapped around her chest. Frida’s chest is cut open, from the neck all the way down to her pelvis, revealing a half crumbled column with horizontal cracks along it to be in place of her spine. Frida’s body is riddled with nails piercing through her skin and dotting her face. Her long, dark hair hangs behind her shoulders with one side pushed behind her ear as tears stream down her face; however, her eyes hold a stoic gaze that cannot be broken. The background of the painting is a muddy brown earth lined with cracks, leading to a dark sea that meets with the sky. The fissures upon the earth resemble the cracks on Frida’s column as both emphasize the chaos and violence of the tragic incident she faced. Frida Kahlo was influenced by André Breton, a surrealist painter who emphasized Kahlo’s use of surrealism in her portraits, along with traditional Mexican roots and support from her husband Diego Rivera, a muralist. Both Frida Kahlo’s artwork and Hermenegildo Bustos’ work are similar in that both are representative of portrait style art. Also, Bustos’ portrait, The Portraiture of Bustos, reflects a mood of authority and a stoic gaze which Frida adopts in her portraits. She was also heavily influenced by José María Estrada and her painting, Portrait of a Young Woman with a Coral Necklace and Pink Dress. In Kahlo’s painting called, Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States, she imitated Estrada’s paining by using the same dress, necklace, and even angling the head in the same direction. By making simple changes, Frida hoped to incorporate Mexican elements into her portrait. Frida influenced many artists throughout her time in the 20th century and continues to pose as an idol and legacy

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.

Mexico-born artist Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) is famous for uniquely expressing her unordinary life in self-portraits. Kahlo is an artist who represents Mexico and Latin America, and many books on her life and artworks have been published.

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

Art is the essence of emotions, expressed through the canvas to fulfill an artist’s ego and reflect their inner self. Frida Kahlo one of the many women who revolutionized art, was a great example of the strength of women, and their expression of daily life through art. Frida lived from 1907-1954; at the age of 18 she had an accident that left her paralyzed, she began to paint more frequently to express herself. Kahlo is considered a surrealist, due to her art being subconsciously done, although Frida always mentioned “They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality”. She