Frida Khalo Analysis

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.

Frida Kahlo was one of the most fascinating visual artists of the nineteenth century. Her art and life were filled with pain that was both emotional and physical which she expressed through her paintings. Frida was her art. Frida did not conform to most cultural norms or gender roles in her life time, she was a free spirit trapped in an invalid body. While she did not assume very much acclaim during her lifetime she did manage to be very well traveled even though she was born and died in the same home. She eventually developed a cult-like following in the nineteen-eighties and nineties. She has become a poster girl for modern feminism and a political force of her own time, through all of her physical pain and heartache she was able to

Art is not always pleasant, but neither is society. Art and society have a reflective relationship with one another. During social, religious, and political controversy, artists such as Frida Kahlo incorporated imagery into their portraits of society which are often disturbing to the viewer. The role of an artist often includes acting as a social critic, to show us aspects of our cultural landscape that are unpleasant. In this manner, the art acts as a commentary on the negative aspects of Western civilisation. During the thirties and forties, Kahlo incorporated the hidden realities of economic and social depression into her works.

In “The Broken Column” Frida expresses anguish and suffering in a straightforward manner as we see metal nails piercing Frida’s face, arms, breasts, torso, and what we can assume is her upper thigh underneath a white sheet. Frida has duplicated herself bound and constrained in what appears to be a body brace. At Frida’s torso is a fissure like split allowing us to view an exposed broken column in place of her spine. The column itself seems to be weak and on the verge of collapsing to ruble. The landscape behind Frida seems to be barren with areas of dark ravines. The tears on her face almost seem out of place in the sense that her facial expression remains calm, reserved and strong. Her whole body seems to be supported only by the brace wrapped around body and yet she shows spiritual triumph. We see this in how we can see she's in physical anguish, and yet she looks straight ahead and challenges both herself and the audience to face her situation.

All Artist are influenced by their experience of the world, their personal and cultural beginings and stories. The history and life experience of an artist flows though their work influencing their symbols, style and meaning. Frida Khalo and Gordon Bennett are rich of example this, their art is filled with strong connection to their cultural and personal backgrounds. Khalo had a troubled life of pain and loss; the story is woven through her paintings, where Bennett art is a comment on Australian cultura and the story of his people, not just himself. The art working Diego and I (1946) and Self portrait -But I always wanted to be one of the good guys (1990) are great examples of these artist drawing on their pass.

Frida Kahlo was best known for her reflective self-portraits that defined the tragedies she'd endured. Explaining her affection for the style, Kahlo said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best.” Kahlo contracted Polio at the age of six which left her with a deformed foot, she was also Bed-bound while recovering from a grisly streetcar accident. Kahlo under went over 30 operations throughout her life; and over the years she painted a portrait of herself whenever she was troubled.

time of her divorce with her husband, Diego Rivera. The painting shows how her identity changed as she experienced the pain of betrayal. The Firda on the right represent the Frida that was loved by Diego. In the painting she wore a green traditional Mexican dress, with a heart painted on her chest, and holding on a small portrait of Diego Rivera. The portrait of Diego symbolizes that she loves and cares deeply about him. The heart that was painted symbolizes that spending time together with him gave her love and hope. Shows that she was happy with him, and that she loved him with all her heart. After her divorce with Diego her

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 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.

Her injuries and recovering not only made her stronger physically but emotionally as well. “She was in a bus accident when she was 18 and during this time she found her passion: painting.”(Madison 1) The accident had a substanial impact on her life because she discovered herself through painting. After her recovery she found her purpose by engaging her emotions onto a blank canvas. After failure we should not give up so easily on our passions. “What thoroughly fascinated me about Frida was that she lived exactly how she wanted.”(Youseff 4) I feel like she never lost her spirit after so much trauma. Regardless of her injuries, suffering, and recovering, she still managed to get back up on her feet to pursue her passion and her life. Overall, we shouldn´t let lifes unforeseen curve balls get the best of us, we should still continue to pursue our passions and desires in

Frida from one side to the other at the level of the pelvis (104). Frida Kahlo was left with a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, several broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and eleven fractures in her right leg. In addition her right foot was dislocated and crushed, and her shoulder was out of joint. For a month, Frida was forced to stay flat on her back, encased in a plaster cast and enclosed in a boxlike structure. The steel handrail from the tram had literally gone through her body at the level of the abdomen; entering on the left side, it had gone out through the vagina. Due to this accident, Frida underwent thirty different operations and three miscarriages. It was during this time that Frida Kahlo discovered her talent for painting and drawing, also during this challenging time for her she produced "The Broken Spine". Having to depend on everyone but herself, Kahlo portrays herself as weak and helpless. She depicts her self-portrait with metal rods supporting her broken spine. Although Frida's recovery was miraculous, she did have relapses of tremendous pain and fatigue all throughout her life, which cause her to be hospitalized for long periods of time, bedridden at times (106). She underwent tremendous stress

La Columna Rota (The Broken Column), a painting by surrealist Frida Kahlo, is of Frida herself. In this painting young Frida Kahlo is naked from the waist up, she has tears coming from her eyes, and she has nails all over her body. She has an opening in the middle of her body with a column going straight up. Frida is wearing what looks to be a white brace around the opened part of her body. In my opinion, the items that are in this painting are symbolizing the negativity about the accident that Frida Kahlo had when she was just eighteen years old. The three things that I believe are essential to the theme of this painting are the two large nails that are in Frida’s heart, the tears that are coming from Frida’s eyes, the broken column that is in the middle of her body, and the white brace that is holding Frida’s body together. I interpret these four objects to be the most important symbols when relating them to the theme which I believe is a cry of pain.

Also, the difference in action between how Salma acts around Alex versus Diego exemplifies her ability to differentiate between a young Frida and an adult Frida. These differences allow for two different perspectives on the overall theme of love and art. The ability of an actor to embody a character of a historical figure, as Salma does, is an extraordinary talent because no one conjured up the character in their mind. The actor has to represent a person who actually lived. Therefore it is important to give respect to that person while emphasizing the meaning of their life. In Salma’s case, she had to emphasize the personality of Frida and relate her relationship and psychological struggles to those found in her paintings in order to manifest a character that shows how one’s perspective on love and art affects their quality. By repurposing some of the optimism of her youth to a realist view of the world, Salma showed that Frida’s life was more than just a cautionary

Since Frida spent most of her time in hospital beds, she used that time to create paintings that documented the major events in her life. In 1937, Kahlo created My Nurse and I, in this painting, a nurse with a mask covering her face has in arms a baby with an adult face of Frida. The backstory of this painting is that Frida’s mother due to complications couldn’t breastfeed her. Her family hired a nurse to breastfeed her. This eventually affected their relationship because she never felt a bond with her mother. There are no connections between her and the wet nurse, you can tell the distance between them, there is no love in this painting. It implies Frida’s feelings of loss and separation form her own mother. In 1940, Frida painted Self Portrait with Thorn

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