Frida Kahlo: A Life in Pain
“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my reality,” said Frida Kahlo describing her art work (Frida Kahlo n.d.). Kahlo was a Mexican artist from the mid-20th century. She was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico, and the daughter of German and Mexican descendants (Lucie-Smith 1999). During her lifetime Kahlo embarked on many hardships caused by illness, heartache, and love. She became known for her haunting self portraits, radical politics, and that infamous unibrow (Stephen 2008).
The turmoil began early for this young woman. At age six, she was stricken with polio, which left her walking with a limp. From the beginning Kahlo did not intend to become an artist. She was attending school at The Preparatoria (Preparatory) to become a famous doctor (Frida Kahlo n.d.). It was on September 17, 1925 that the most pivotal moment in her life occurred. Kahlo was on her way home from school when she became involved in a tragic bus accident. She was discovered by her boyfriend at the time, Alejandro Gomez Avais. Her slender body had been pierced by a hand rail (Lucie-Smith 1999). Many, including doctors, thought she wouldn’t make it. She proved wrong after surviving various surgeries. For a year she was put in bed to recuperate. The accident left her with a broken back, broken pelvis, and a crushed leg. During her recuperation she taught herself she taught herself to paint by studying Italian Renaissance (Frida Kahlo n.d.). She began painting portraits of family members and still life from her bed.
It was at the Preparatoria where she had met her future husband, Diego Rivera a famous Mexican muralist; it was love at first sight (Stephen 2008). Kahlo would reunite...
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... The feelings you get when you look at art work by Kahlo are strong. A person either hates it from the moment they see it because it’s horrific or you love it because it is such profound work. So much meaning is established in every painting.
Works Cited
Frida Kahlo. http://www.jlhs.nhusd.k12.ca.us/classes/social_science/Latin_America/Frida%20Kahlo/Frida_Kahlo.html (accessed October 6, 2008).
Fuentes, Carlos. "Introduction ." In Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait, 16. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, 2001.
Kahlo, Frida. Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001.
Lucie-Smith, Edward. Artchive. September 1999. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo.html (accessed October 6, 2008).
Stephen, Katherine. "Frida Kahlo: a full life, fully expressed." Christian Science Monitor, April 11, 2008: 19.
Ester Hernandez is a Chicana artist, best known for her works of Chicana women. Ester’s goal is to recreate women’s lives to produce positive images of women’s lifestyle and to create icons. Her piece, Frida y Yo, contains the iconic painter Frida Kahlo. Frida, after being in multiple accidents causing long-term pain and suffering, began painting, mostly self-portraits, to portray her reality and glorify the pain. Similar to how Hernandez's goals are a juxtaposition to Frida’s artwork, the art piece Frida y Yo creates a juxtaposition between life and suffering and death and fortune.
Thesis Statement: I want to share the Life of Frida Kahlo that led to her recognition as an Iconic artist even today.
Frida Kahlo nació el 6 de Julio 1907 en la ciudad de México. Ella les dijo a muchas personas que nació el 7 de Julio 1910 porque quiso parecer más joven a los otros. Aunque sus padres fueron judíos, Frida nació en México. Frida fue una artista surrealista y sus obras vió de sus emociones de la tristexa y la cólera de su vida. Ella le encantó decir los chistes, reír, y sonreír. Frida Kahlo llevó las ropas de la cultura tradicional de México porque pensó que las ropas fueran una forma del arte. Todo el mundo admiró mucho a Frida, a causa de sus obras y su actitud.
Frida Kahlo was an amazing woman whose many tragedies influenced her to put her stories into her paintings. She was born in July 6th 1907 to a Mexican Roman Catholic mother who was of Indian and Spanish decent and a German photographer father. Frida had three sisters, Mitilde and Adriana, who were older and Christina who was younger. She learned about Mexican history, art and architecture by looking at her father’s photography. When Frida was six she got polio and it was a long time before she would heal completely. After surviving polio, Frida’s right leg became weak and thin, so her father encouraged her to play sports to help her.
Frida Kahlo is known for the most influential Latin American female artist. She is also known as a rebellious feminist. Kahlo was inspired to paint after her near-death bus incident when she was 17. After this horrendous incident that scarred her for life, she went under 35 different operations. These operations caused her extreme pain and she was no longer able to have kids. Kahlo’s art includes self portraits of her emotions, pain, and representations of her life. Frida Kahlo was an original individual, not only in her artwork but also in her
Fuentes, C. (1995). The Diary of Frida Kahlo An Intimate Self-Portrait. New York: A Times Mirror Company.
Born in 1910, Frida was a woman that was not about preserving young beauty. She loved to acquaint herself with Mexico, where she was born. Being a great painter, she loved to paint pictures of herself. A quote by her is as follows “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best”. In other words, she can paint and feel free, because she knows herself well and can paint the
Frieda Kahlo painted Frieda and Diego Rivera in1931 as a wedding portrait. She did many painting vision of her life. She dealt with a lot of pain that is seen in her art work. She worked on this portrait during the first year of their marriage. She did many self-portrait painting on her life.
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter who did self-portraits and was considered a feminist icon. She is one of the most important female artists of the twentieth century. She originally wanted to become a doctor, but a bus accident left her unable to do so. I chose this artist because she had one eyebrow and I thought it was strange for a rich woman to have such a statement in the early 1900s. I thought to myself, she must be an interesting person and I was right. She didn't have any formal training but she developed her artistic skills and later would influence people and culture. The painting is called, Itzucintli Dog with Me and it is one of my favorites.
In the fourth quarter of eighth grade in Art and Computer Science I worked on a project on Frida Khalo. Although the topic selection was random I was excited to do my project on Frida Khalo because I have visited Guanajuato, Mexico where she is very popular. The computer science part of this project was an Adobe Spark Video where I informed viewers about Frida Khalo and her work. I really enjoyed being able to research such an interesting topic. Through this research I really came to appreciate Frida’s work. This is the eighth grade theme and Frida’s work really made me embrace it. The Art part of this project was a recreation of one of Frida’s works. I selected “Me and My Parrots” (pictured below) which is a self portrait of Frida and her
Since its emergence over 30,000 years ago, one of visual art’s main purposes has been to act as an instrument of personal expression and catharsis. Through the mastery of paint, pencil, clay, and other mediums, artists can articulate and make sense of their current situation or past experiences, by portraying their complex, abstract emotions in a concrete form. The act of creation gives the artist a feeling of authority or control over these situations and emotions. Seen in the work of Michelangelo, Frida Kahlo, Jean Michel-Basquiat, and others, artists’ cathartic use of visual art is universal, giving it symbolic value in literature. In Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,
Art is a very important part of humanity’s history, and it can be found anywhere from the walls of caves to the halls of museums. The artists that created these works of art were influenced by a multitude of factors including personal issues, politics, and other art movements. Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh, two wildly popular artists, have left behind artwork, that to this day, influences and fascinates people around the world. Their painting styles and personal lives are vastly different, but both artists managed to capture the emotions that they were feeling and used them to create artwork.
Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird was painted after her divorce from muralist Diego Rivera and the end of her relationship with her lover, photographer Nickolas Muray in 1940. Muray bought the portrait shortly after it was painted, and it is currently part of the Nickolas Muray collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. This rather small painting (approximately 16” x 24”), shows Kahlo in a frontal position and directly confronting the viewer’s gaze from the canvas. Her bold eyebrows hold the emphasis on her face, as a thorn necklace strangles her throat, trailing down her chest like the roots of a tree. A small black hummingbird with its wings outstretched hangs like a pendant from her throat. She wears a simple white blouse that contrasts with the tan tone of her skin. She is surrounded by insects and animals,
In 1932, Kahlo produced her more surrealist painting, 'Henry Ford Hospital' (See Fig 4) where a naked Kahlo appears on a hospital bed surrounded by several item including a foetus, a snail, a flower and a pelvis all floating, connected to her by red, threadlike veins. This work again was so intimate, this time depicting her second miscarriage. Rivera quotes 'in the annals of art, Frida is the only person ever to have ripped open her breast and torn out her heart to tell the truth in biological terms and say what is felt inside' (Alcantara and Egnolff 1999:69)
A lot of meaning to Frida Kahlo's life is given from the sketch. After the mischance it was not all great that she experienced and the few operations she needed to experience. At the point when the work of art was initially looked it gives an indication of good side and awful side. This can be told by watching the light and dim side consolidated in the depiction. The artistic creation will get numerous individuals' consideration on the grounds that Frida painted communicating how she felt amid that time of 1946.