More handpicked essays just for you.
Frida Kahlo and her influence on the world
What experiences in Frida Kahlo's life were her biggest art influences
Frida Kahlo and her influence on the world
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Everything has been written in the last half-century about Frida Kahlo and her paintings. Kahlo’s works have been thoroughly and deeply analysed.
Nonetheless, she is mostly remembered for her marriage to Diego Rivera, her accident, consequently her pain, and her bisexuality. Anyhow her work is much more than that: it has been forgotten her political role within Mexican post-revolution, and it is this side of her work that I want to analyse.
More specifically I want to consider the role that her national identity played in her life and consequently in her paintings.
As I mentioned before her self-portraits are often only connected with her personal life, her physical pain, and the theme of femininity.
They often reduced the imagery in Kahlo’s work with an urge to “paint away” her accident, all the suffering, and the pain; this does little justice to her work, reducing it to merely a visual cry of personal anguish. It diminishes a significant aspect that is an essential element that runs throughout her life and her work, which she did with a deep intelligence and socially committed point of view.
She made her art both political and cultural, through the use of Aztec art and symbols. She did not merely painted herself, but
…show more content…
she painted Mexico, and she painted it in such way to be understood by the people. She knew what she wanted her art to be: “Some critics have tried to classify me as a surrealist, but I do not consider my self as surrealist…I detest surrealism. To me it seems a manifestation of bourgeois art. A deviation from the true art that people hope for from the artist…I wish to be worthy, with my paintings, of the people to whom I belong and to the ideas which strengthen me. ” Her personal pain should not obscure her engagement to Mexico and the Mexican people. As Janice Helland asserts, “As she sought her own roots, she also voiced concern for her country as it struggled for an independent cultural identity. Her life and even her death were political ”. Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderon was born on 6 July 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico. Kahlo’s father was a German Jew, and her mother was a Mexican Catholic. She had a difficult childhood, as she was afflicted with polio when she was six years old. Frida was forced in bed for nine months, and she was left with a smaller right leg after recovery. The central event that completely changed her life happened when she was 18; she had a fatal accident on a bus back to home. Frida was caught in the impact and was left with very severe injuries; in the crash she broke her spinal column, collarbone, ribs, and pelvis. She somehow recovered from the accident, even though she had physical consequence and an enormous number of operations throughout her life. This event is fundamental because, as she was forced into bed for a long time, it defined the beginning of her career as an artist. Bertram Wolfe said: “An automobile accident, made a painter out of her ”. There is no question that this last event influenced her work. Kahlo herself described, to Parker Lesley in 1939, the paintings she did as direct illustrations of specific episodes of her life . Nevertheless, she put many other symbols and ideas in her paintings. She strongly considered herself as a member of the “Pueblo”, a woman of the people, and she considered Mexico’s historical agony associated with her personal suffering. She always displayed and was proud of her “Mexicanidad”. This term refers to the sense of pride in being Mexican and the re-examination of national identity that was stimulated by the Mexican revolution of 1910-20 . Mexicans muralists adopted the Mexicanidad as part of a broad political project; while Kahlo personally embodied Mexican culture and identity. One of the recurring leitmotifs that we find in her work is the development of an identity rooted in the earth and firmly identified with the Mexican people. Another strong identification that shows how much Frida was connected to her country is that although she was born in 1907, Kahlo later adopted 1910 as her date of birth to identify herself more closely with the rebirth of the nation through revolution.
Her personal project manifested itself in her attire, through her choice of Tehuana costume, pre-Columbian jewellery and traditional hairstyles. Frida Kahlo began using Mexican indigenous dress when she married Diego Rivera. Kahlo’s adoption of native clothing has been frequently connected to her will to please her husband and above all to mask her physical defections . However, we must consider this dress also as a political statement: Kahlo’s sartorial endorsement of post-revolutionary
ideology. We can assert that her conscious acquisition of ancient and contemporary Mexican cultural symbols reveal a passage from a single woman to a married one, and from an invalid to an artist. Her personal shift indeed reflects Mexico itself, in a “phase of self-examination and self-definition after the Revolution” . In her paintings, this stance is most evident in work such as Four Inhabitants of Mexico City 1939, in which she represents four archetypal figures drawn from Mexican costumes, culture and folklore as her companions. Hayden Herrera has defined Mexicanidad as an ethic or as “a style, a political stance, and psychological support”. The painting Four Inhabitants of Mexico is in some ways an ambiguous celebration of her Mexican origins. Herrera contended that these four figures represent the companions too often absent in the “painful and sorrowful drama” of Kahlo’s life . Moreover, because Kahlo has painted herself into the composition, as a young child sitting in the dirt, gives credence to Herrera’s secondary argument that with the development of her Mexican persona, Kahlo became the fifth inhabitant of Mexico . It is clear at this point that Frida always mixed in her paintings symbols recalling her personal life, all the pain she went through connected to Mexico revolution. The idol, with her broken and repaired head, represents Mexico’s past. Since the fronts of her feet are missing, we know she also stands for Frida, who had a number of foot operations in the 1930s.
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.
After Rosa was expelled the second time her father decided to train her to become an artist. She was a very good student and mostly p ainted animals and landscapes. She often sold her works to older art students. She was know as a realist painter (Rosa Bonheur Facts).
Andra, . Pixe77, "The Aztecs’ Mark on Modern Art and Culture." Last modified March 09, 2012. Accessed November 12, 2013. http://www.pixel77.com/aztecs-mark-on-modern-art-culture/.
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
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.
Attention Material: 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 under the name of 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.
Though the start of artistic expression cannot be pinpointed to a specific date, the growth of art and its complexity cannot be denied. Two complex pieces of art which will be compared and contrasted within this essay are Mary Cassatt’s Portrait of the Artist and Frida Kahlo’s Self Portrait with Monkey. Though Cassatt belonged the Impressionist movement (Streissguth 48) and Kahlo who was labeled as a member of the Surrealist movement, which she later denied (Stremmel, Kerstin, & Grosenick 1940), both paintings have an equal number of similarities as contrasting elements.
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.
Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo are an important aspect of the Hispanic World and well-known names in Latino art. Rivera and Kahlo knew many famous painters such as Duchamp, Siqueiros, Orozco and Picasso. Picasso became a great friend of the family. Kahlo has influenced many places in Mexico. There are many land marks not only in Mexico but around the world. The Frida Kahlo Museum is located in Coyoacan Mexico in her Casa Azul home (blue house), this is the same place Kahlo was born, grew up, lived with her husband Rivera and died (Gale, 1996). The museum holds collections and embraces the personal effects of both artists shining light on the way of life for affluent Mexican writers and artist during the first half of the century. The Dolores Olmedo Museum at Hacienda La Noria is another museum-house from the 16th century monastery, includes many of Kahlo’s famous paintings such as “The Broken Column,” “Luther Burbank,” and holds a large amount of Rivera’s works of art (Gale, 1996). Rivera’s murals of his wife Frida, himself, and various members of their family and friends can be found at the Secretariat of Public Education (where he met his wife), the Mexico City’s National Palace, the Museo de la Alameda, and the Palace of Fine Arts (Gale, 1996).
Even though an individual’s response is subjective, hermeneutical aesthetics focuses on interpretive incompleteness as part of the way human, viewers of artworks included, are in the world. An artwork is always experienced in the present from a particular present point of view and its interpretation is the transmission of meanings across time. In this way the artworks discussed in this thesis bear witness to particular historical events and allow for possible projections of those past events into the future. Contemporary life is permeated with a diversity of visual information. In such an atmosphere the hermeneutic approach provides a way of understanding the applications of the meaning we make of visual input. In light of it, the responsibility of both artist and viewer is among the issues discussed in the last part ‘Beyond Horizons’. Here the perspective moves to weave together the threads of ideas and issues that have been identified in the ‘Fusion of Horizons’ section, and reflects on aspects that reverberate beyond the shifting possibilities within the
I think that Frida's life greatly influenced her paintings. Most of her paintings have some form of nature or wildlife featured in them. Not only did she display a theme of nature, she also liked to wear indian women clothing. Her style is realistic and lifelike. She has many paintings that fall into the categories of symbolism, surrealism, cubism, modern art, and magical realism. Not only that, a lot of her paintings have herself in them. The color use of Frida Kahlo is very lifelike, she uses natural colors; she doesn't use many bright colors. She uses many primary colors. I have also noticed that a few of her paintings exhibit monkeys. Her paintings remind me of the Mexican culture that I studied in my two year Spanish class. Artemisia’s paintings are very feministic. I believe that Artemisia put her life into her paintings as well. The paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi that I have seen all have women displayed in them; whether they are her, or other women. I would recognize her paintings because almost all of her artwork features a woman reaching out for something. Women in these paintings have a facial expression, that is the same in almost all of her works. Artemisia had very lifelike paintings, they were beautiful but also displayed a tense mood. Her paintings were very striking as were Fridas. Artemisia's paintings are historical and display a tone of hurt. In comparison, both Fridas and Artemisia’s paintings
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.
In 1929 she married Diego Rivera which will also heavily impacted her work, creating paintings in which some argue represent her love for Diego. Frida Kahlo identified herself as a communist, even helping house the exiled communist Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalia. During her early stages of painting
Louise Bourgeois was a distinguished French-American artist of the 20th century. Best known for her depictions of the female form and existential imagery through sculpture, installations, paintings, and prints, her practice was influenced by her childhood memories and an interest in psychology to create emotional works relating to sexuality, pain, and fear.