Frida Kahlo de Rivera

Frida Kahlo: A Brief Introduction

Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican artist who was born on July 6, 1907 and is best known for her self-portrait paintings depicting incidents from her life. She had polio as a child and was in a car crash as a teenager that almost killed her. During her recovery, she began to concentrate on her drawing. Her masterpiece depicts her mental and physical suffering in her childhood, as well as the difficulties in her marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera (Kahlo n.p). She had around 200 sculptures, drawings, and sketches, 55 of which were self-portraits. Her relationship with her husband was filled with infidelity from both sides, and some paintings portray this element. Some of her other works are about her national identity given that she had an ancestry from both Germany and Mexico (The Art Story n.p). Thus, this paper will focus on some of her artwork regarding their form, content, inspiration, and whether the work succeeded or not.

The Broken Column

The piece portrays her body after the accident; hence, called “The Broken Column” a translation of “La columna rota.” In this piece, Frida depicts the pain she was in after the accident and the pain in her life where she has nails stuck all over her body. Also, in place of her spine, she draws a broken ironic column to portray the state of her damaged spine after the accident. She wears a corset that reveals most of her upper body but covers the bottom part of a sheet. Her beautiful face is covered with tears, but her eyes look straight ahead; a sign that she is holding on despite the much pain she is in. The background shows a land that has black contours indicating that she feels alone in her grief. Thus, this piece is clear and it easy to explore and understand what Frida was experiencing; hence, it succeeded in portraying the artist’s theme.

The Two Fridas

Another piece of Frida’s artwork is the portrait “The Two Fridas.” In this work, there are two pictures of Frida holding hands where in one of them, she is wearing traditional attire and in the other one, a more modern outfit. In both photographs, her heart is painted on top of the outfits. In old picture, she is wearing a traditional dress having the heart cut open with one of the arteries connected to modern Frida’s heart. There is also an artery that is dripping blood after being cut by Frida using surgical pincers. In the recent picture, the heart is intact, but the face looks sad and lonely. Frida painted this picture to express her loneliness and sadness after divorcing her husband. Some sources (Siquera-Batista and Mendes n.p) suggest that her husband, Riviera rejected the traditional Frida; hence, the bleeding due to pain, which may kill her, unlike the modern Frida, who was loved and respected. In the background, clouds are depicting a storm possibly to show how her life is in distress after the divorce. Thus, this piece is impressive, beautiful and easy to understand what the artist was thinking when painting; hence, it is a success, and its reproduction is displayed in the Frida Kahlo museum (Kahlo n.p).

Comparison of the two pieces

The two pieces are similar in many ways as they portray the pain Frida went through in her life. The broken column piece shows her physical pain, which was mostly due to her accident as a teenager, thus, affected life, having had to go through 30 operations (Kahlo n.p). The two Fridas piece portrays her emotional pain resulting from the divorce and betrayal of her husband, Diego. In this regard, the pieces describe the reality of Frida’s life as do all of her other paintings and these are under the theme of pain. Frida once said, “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone because I am the person I know best” (Kahlo n.p). From this statement and the two pieces discussed, it is evident that she was not just alone physically, but also in her life.

Conclusion

Frida Kahlo is considered a realist because her artwork was a reflection of what was happening in the world around her. She shares her marriage story, which was filled with betrayal and pain on her side. The piece, the broken column, provides sympathy as it shows the pain she endured because of her accident. The painting of the two Fridas shows how broken hearted she was because of the divorce and her husband betrayal. These two pictures are done so magnificently with no apparent errors during the painting process; hence, easy to understand and one can easily feel like they are in the artist’s world. Though Frida did not sell most of her paintings during her lifetime, they now go for millions of dollars, a sign that they are beautiful and magnificent pieces.

Work Cited

Siquera-Batista, Rodrigo, and Pinio Duarte et al. Mendes. ”Art and pain in Frida Kahlo.” The parallel between health and art : Frida Kahlo’s colors 24 may 2014: 139-144.

The Art Story; Modern Art Insight. ”Frida Kahlo; Mexican Painter.” 2017. The Art Story; Modern Art Insight. 25 November 2017 .