In this essay I want to analyse Frida Kahlo’s work. More specifically I want to consider the role that her national identity played in her life and consequently in her paintings. Kahlo’s works have been thoroughly analysed in the past fifty years. What are mostly considered in her self-portraits are 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 limited justice to her work. It diminishes a significant group of paintings that she did with a deep intelligence and social committed point of view, to merely a visual cry of personal anguish. She made her art both political and cultural, through the use of Aztec art and symbols. She painted herself, she painted Mexico and she painted 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 difficult childhood, as she was afflicted with polio when she was six years old. She was forced to stay in bed for nine months and she was left with a smaller right leg after recovery. The most important event that changed her life completely 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 accident she broke her spinal column, collarbone, ribs, and pelvis. Although she recovered from the accident, this event left her physically very fragile, above all with deep psychic consequences. There is no question that this last event influenced her work, but we have to recognized that there is a relation between her own suffering and the situation that was in Mexico at the time. She felt 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 ”. 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 certainly reflects Mexico itself, in a “phase of self-examination and self-definition after the Revolution” . The connection that Frida as with past and present Mexico is most visible in two Kahlo’s paintings from the late 1930s: My Nurse and I (1937) and Four Inhabitants of Mexico (1938). In My Nurse and I Kahlo is being breastfed by a nurse with a pre-Columbian mask.
Nancy Deffebach affirms that this character is not an individual at all, but rather a symbolic being representing Mexico’s Mesoamerican past. For Deffebach, Kahlo has painted herself suckling on the breast of her nation’s ancient heritage, with the rather blatant insinuation being that the past is providing the present with endless possibilities . This painting could be a double self-portrait , because the nurse has the same hair as Frida, and the Teotihuacan mask has eyebrows that join. As in later paintings, the strong half Frida is her Indian half, while the pale skinned Frida is more …show more content…
weak. Like My Nurse and I, 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 . And 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’s 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.
After a 10 revolutionary years, in 1920 Mexican political leaders wanted to develop a program to cultivate nationalism through education and art. They rediscovered folkloric Mexican elements; they highlighted the Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past. They made the native Mexican the protagonist of the revolution. Despite the glorification of indigenous people, the most of them were actually socially and economically isolated from Mexican society. This was a failure, because they failed to convey the richness and the depth of the indigenous
cultural. By contrast when Frida went to San Francisco in 1930 with Rivera she was recognized as una Mexicana, and in the pictures of her taken during this trip, we can clearly recognise that she represents the two main ambitions that characterised post revolutionary Mexico: she embodies perfectly in herself the pre-Hispanic culture (through the Aztec jewellery, hairstyle) and at the same time she promotes the rich diversity in Mexican culture. She affirms as well with her persona and a unique Mexican presence in contrast to Europe and mostly to North America culture. She wrote to a friend: “Meanwhile some of the gringa-women are imitating me and trying to dress a la mexicana…they look absolutely impossible. That doesn’t mean that I look good in them either ”. These words indicate that she gained a different perspective on herself and on Mexico as well from the United States. She was able to stand back and recognise her dress as a symbol of her Mexicanidad. During her stay in Detroit Kahlo painted Self-portrait on the Border between Mexico and the United States. This painting clearly shows the contrasts that Frida saw between the agricultural and preindustrial Mexico and the Western highly industrialized civilization. On one side, the Mexican one, she represented ruins of the Aztec past, and vegetation deeply rooted in the ground. She painted an Aztec temple, meant for sacrifice, and a the sun, dripping with sacrificed blood. By contrast on the American side we find high buildings rooted in the earth with pipes and electric machinery. She stands in the middle, and through putting herself at a crossroad, she develops and consolidates her position, both personal and political. She wears a “colonial-style” dress austerely coiffed hair, holding a Mexican flag and wearing a Coatlicue-like necklace with bones.
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.
The painting entitled `Zapata con el caballo de Cortés` was painted in 1931, eleven years after the end of The Mexican Revolution, by the Mexican muralist – Diego Rivera. It represents the social economic and political revolution in Mexico led by peasants under the conduct of Emiliano Zapata against the authoritarian regime of the former president - Portfolio Diaz. In this analysis I will focus on the characters, the setting, the colours and the way they communicate in the painting.
Rosales, F. Arturo. Lecture 2/14 Film The US-Mexican War Prelude. Weber, David J. - "The 'Path of the World'" Foreigners in Their Native Land: The Historical Roots of Mexican Americans.
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.
Mexican American struggles in the United States date back to the Spanish discovery of the New World in 1492. For over five hundred years, Mexicans have endured social injustices and inequalities at the hands of their superiors. The mistreatment of the native people of this land is constantly overlooked for "…the main goals shaping Spanish colonial policy were to maintain and expand political control and to convert Indians to Christianity." (Vargas p.30) With this mindset, the basic nature of relations between the dominant Anglos and the inferior Mexicans was that of suppression, rejection, ignorance and separation as opposed to establishment of ideals that would foster cultural relations and produce the true definition of a "melting pot" society.
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).
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
After three hundred years of suffering and oppression by the Spanish crown, and inspired by the fire of revolution sweeping over the world in places such as United States and France, the Mexican population finally decided that they could endure no more, it was time for a change! In this essay I put together some of the various factors of Spanish colonialism that led to the Mexican independence. These factors were the socio political conditions of nueva españa, the enlightment era, as well as various leaders
Life in Mexico was, before the Revolution, defined by the figure of the patron that held all of power in a certain area. Juan Preciado, who was born in an urban city outside of Comala, “came to Comala because [he] had been told that [his] father, a man named Pedro Paramo lived there” (1). He initially was unaware of the general dislike that his father was subjected to in that area of Mexico. Pedro was regarded as “[l]iving bile” (1) by the people that still inhabited Comala, a classification that Juan did not expect. This reveals that it was not known by those outside of the patron’s dominion of the cruel abuse that they levied upon their people. Pedro Paramo held...
Mexican American history began in the16th century under Spanish colonialism. The Spanish had a goal of conquest and colonization. Evidently, that goal was successfully accomplished because when the Spanish first arrived in 1492 Mexico’s population was fourteen million, but by the end of the 16th century it had drastically declined to one million. Numbers decreased because of the cruel treatment, forced labor, and disease brought by the Spanish. The Spanish eventually controlled most of the territory in the Southwest and over three hundred towns had been established for the purpose of control and conversion. The Spanish imposed conditions on the natives of Mexico that would belittle them. They aimed to convert them in order to make them re...
The value of the word community is a social unit of any size that shares common values, or that is situated in a given geographical area, example in Mexico. The need of creating an official history of Mexico, which can be transmitted to the citizens, was the principle idea of the establishment of the Mexican art mural. It needed a medium that could reach a large amount of poor and illiterate public. It is a group of people who are connected by hard and durable situations that extend beyond through ancestral ties, and who usually define that relationship as important to their social identity and practice. The Mexican muralist began as a government-funded forms of public art—specifically, large-scale wall paintings in civic buildings—in the wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). The Revolution was a massive civil war helmed by a number of factions, which had very specific political and social agendas, to change the hopes and fears of the general population, and the transition of private to federal draining of lakes from villages. The communities may share intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, and risks in common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. After the Revolution, then, the government took on the very difficult project of transforming a divided Mexico into a coherent nation of Mexicans. Therefore, the public art
Indigenous people of the world have historically been and continue to be pushed to the margins of society. Similarly, women have experienced political, social, and economical marginalization. For the past 500 years or so, the indigenous peoples of México have been subjected to violence and the exploitation since the arrival of the Spanish. The xenophobic tendencies of Spanish colonizers did not disappear after México’s independence; rather it maintained the racial assimilation and exclusion policies left behind by the colonists, including gender roles (Moore 166) . México is historically and continues to be a patriarchal society. So when the Zapatista movement of 1994, more formally known as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National (Zapatista Army of National Liberation; EZLN) constructed a space for indigenous women to reclaim their rights, it was a significant step towards justice. The Mexican government, in haste for globalization and profits, ignored its indigenous peoples’ sufferings. Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, consisting of mostly indigenous peoples living in the mountains and country, grew frustration with the Mexican government. It was in that moment that the Zapatista movement arose from the countryside to awaken a nation to the plight of indigenous Mexicans. Being indigenous puts a person at a disadvantage in Mexican society; when adding gender, an indigenous woman is set back two steps. It was through the Zapatista movement that a catalyst was created for indigenous women to reclaim rights and autonomy through the praxis of indigeneity and the popular struggle.
The ethnic- Mexican experience has changed over the years as American has progressed through certain period of times, e.g., the modernity and transformation of the southwest in the late 19th and early 20th century, the labor demands and shifting of U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century, and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. Through these events Mexican Americans have established and shaped their culture, in order, to negotiate these precarious social and historical circumstances. Throughout the ethnic Mexicans cultural history in the United States, conflict and contradiction has played a key role in shaping their modalities of life. Beginning in the late 20th century and early 21st century ethnic Mexicans have come under distress from the force of globalization. Globalization has followed the trends of conflict and contradiction forcing ethnic Mexicans to adjust their culture and combat this force. While Mexican Americans are in the struggle against globalization and the impact it has had on their lives, e.g., unemployment more common, wages below the poverty line, globalization has had a larger impact on their motherland having devastating affects unlike anything in history.