...Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon in Coyoacan, Mexico, July 6th, 1907. She was one of four daughters and was born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian decent. In her first years she had never even thought of becoming an artist. At the age of 18 she was seriously injured in a bus accident. She spent over a year in bed recovering from fractures to her spine, collarbone, and ribs, a shattered pelvis, and shoulder and foot injuries. She endured more than 30 operations in her lifetime. During her recovery she began to paint. Her mom had made a special easel for her to use and her father gave her his oil paints and brushes. At the young age of 22 she married a famous Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, who happened to be 20 years her elder. Their relationship survived through infidelities, the pressure of careers, divorce, remarriage, Frida's bisexual affairs, her poor health, and her inability to have children. As an example of her problems and pain she once said, "I suffered two grave accidents in my life...one in which a streetcar knocked me down, and the other was Diego. Frida created around 200 paintings related both to her emotional pain and to her relationship with Diego. Out of the 200 paintings and drawings, 55 of them were self-portraits. Her self-portraits and still life were very naïve and filled with colors and forms of Mexican culture. In most of her self-portraits...
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...Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon better known as Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter born in Coayacan. She is possibly best known for her self-portraits, her work is recalled for its pain and passion and its strong vibrant colors. Her work has been celebrated in Mexico as representative of national and its indigenous tradition and by feminists for its rigid portrayal of the female experience and form. Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coayacan, Mexico. She was one of four daughters born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. Becoming an artist was never the original plan for Frida. After surviving polio, at the age of 6, which left her right leg thinner than her left leg, she entered a pre-med program in Mexico City. At the age of 18, Kahlo suffered serious injuries as a result of a bus accident; such accident left her with a broken spinal column, broken collarbone, broken ribs, broken pelvis, and eleven fractures in her right leg and a dislocated shoulder. Not only did she brake almost every part of her body causing her to be in a full body cast for about 3 months, but an iron handrail penetrated her abdomen and her uterus, compromising her reproductive ability (Falini). Kahlo spent over a year in bed recuperating, in which she had to go through about 35 operations all through her lifetime. It was throughout this time that she began to paint and quit pre-med. Isolation was one of the numerous things that influenced...
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...culture in which they were created” (Howells, 2003: 70) Fig1.1: Self Portrait with Necklace of Thorns, 1940, Oil on Canvas Fig. 1.2 Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed), 1932, Oil on Metal This paper will begin with a brief introduction of visual studies, painting in particular and go on to establish the fact that visual images not merely imitate reality but also inform the real world. When one views a painting, it is not complete objective view. There is a very thin line between objectivity and mind working under influence of ideologies. Complex interworking of representation of perceived reality by the painter, ideological approach of the viewer is at play, both, striving to figure out the real. The paper will try to analyze Frida Kahlo’s two paintings Self-Portrait With Thorn Necklace and Humming Bird and Henry ford hospital, The Flying Bed under this lens. The term visual might seem to a layman too simplistic to be critically analyzed but the field of visual culture expands the scope of our ways of seeing and the perceptions that govern an individual's spectatorship. It is easy to define visual as "What is visible to eyes" but new vistas are opened when as students of visual studies we set to decipher the fact that our understanding of reality is primarily if not wholly based on our pre-conceived notions, acquired ideas, collective unconsciousness (Jung), ideologies etc. I call this method of visualizing as pre-conceived because it is governed by our societal...
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...Name: Leriz Pineda Date: 09/30/15 Period: 6 Type your interpretive response here. Be sure to include specific examples from the text (painting), including symbolism, to support your analysis. Frida Kahlo also known as Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán. Perhaps best known for her self-portraits, Kahlo's work is remembered for its pain and passion, and its intense, vibrant colors. Her works has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. Frida Kahlo’s artwork called the Self Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States, her feelings were revealed. Frida Kahlo showed in the painting on how she longed for Mexico but has to stay in the United States....
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...Frida Kahlo: The Woman. The Artist. Why did I choose Frida Kahlo for my research paper? I choose Ms. Kahlo because she is my favorite artist. I first learned of her in middle school and immediately fell in love with her work. It was very emotionally impacting. I have included many samples of her artwork. The things she saw and accomplished prompted the sensational works that spilled out of her brush. She had not wanted to follow in the imaginative strides of her photographic artist father and granddad. Yet, take a gander at the silver coating of the deplorability of her mischance. As opposed to turning into a specialist, she painted pictures that made individuals talk and examine. She is presently unmistakable worldwide for her one of a kind representations toward oneself. Frida Kahlo was a female Mexican painter of mixed heritage, born on July 6, 1907, who lived 47 painful years before passing away on July 13, 1954. Within her short life, Frida was slightly crippled from polio, suffered from a serious streetcar accident that left her infertile, married famous muralist Diego Rivera, divorced, remarried Rivera, became a political activist and rose to fame through her oil paintings, all before succumbing to her poor health. She was an intelligent female in a society that wanted women to be pretty, submissive wives and mothers. She struggled with cultural demands of her gender in a time when women were demanding a change in their role. All these aspects of her life, and more...
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...Kahlo grew up during the Mexican Revolution, she would repeatedly say that she was born three years later to have the same birth year as the start of the revolution in hopes to be directly associated with the revolution. (Stechler)Kahlo would then recall times where her mother had sheltered Kahlo and her sisters in their house to protect them from gunfire. It is also reported that Kahlo’s mother would house the less fortunate people that lived in the streets of their village in their house from ongoing fighting. At the young age of six Kahlo had contracted poliomyelitis, otherwise known as polio, affecting her nervous system and the growth of her body leaving her with one leg noticeably thinner than the other.(Collins) Kahlo also had experienced...
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...Frida Kahlo’s painting, Self-portrait along the Border Line between Mexico and the United States, depicts two very different worlds in the case of Mexico and the United States. Frida seems to be stuck between the worlds and her painting shows the differences between them and the feelings she has towards the two worlds. Through the colors used and images painted in Frida Kahlo’s portrait she is conveying her dislike of the U.S. and her love and favoritism for Mexico and its culture. The most eye catching part of Frida Kahlo’s portrait is the picture of herself in the center of the painting. She is painted in an elegant pink dress with white gloves. In one hand she holds a Mexican flag and in the other she has a lit cigarette. Cigarettes are often used as a sign of rebellion or disinterest towards something. It’s interesting that it’s somewhat pointed towards the American side of the painting. This is Khalo’s way of showing her love for her Mexican culture and demonstrating her displeasure with the United States. In her other...
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...One of my favorite female historical figures is Frida Kahlo. She was a Mexican painter best known for her self-portraits, relationship with Diego Rivera and health problems. At six years old, Frida developed polio, which caused a physical disfigurement of her legs that she eventually covered up with long, wide and colorful skirts. Her early life was very active and included many sports that were considered male dominated activities at the time such as boxing and bicycling. At the age of 18, she ended up in a serious accident with a bus and a trolley car that resulted in the breaking of her spinal column, collarbone, ribs and pelvis along with other fractures and dislocations. In addition to these injuries, a handrail was driven through her abdomen and uterus further preventing her from ever having children of her own. Along with the great physical pain of this accident, severe mental anguish plagued Frida. Her pain left her often times bedridden and barely able to move. To keep herself distracted from her pain, she began to paint, as it did not take much physical effort on her part. She primarily painted herself, sometimes in intense and superbly colorful environments and ways. Her portraits were always very honest and personal. They expressed her own pain as a woman and the physical trials her body had to endure such as her many miscarriages or her body in casts and restraints due to her accident. This is the aspect of Frida that always awed me, her ability to bare her soul...
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...Frida Kahlo was a famous Mexican artist. She was known for her unique paintings and self-portraits. Her paintings are unique because she uses art as a form of spiritual and personal healing. Some of her paintings also possess elements of feminism and political commentary. Frida was in no way afraid to express herself sexuality neither in real life nor in her artwork. “She had a lurid imagination, and her fascination with sexual organs, also seen in the drawings in her journal and in a number of her paintings, burst forth in the ‘exquisite corpses.’” (Frida 162). What The Water Gave Me and Self Portrait Dedicated to Marte R Gomez, pencil on paper were painted by Frida Kahlo in 1938 and 1946 respectively. What The Water Gave Me shows Frida in a bathtub from a first-person perspective. Her feet emerge from the water and reflect onto the water’s surface. Events of her life are also reflected upon the water. “Her fantasy was a product of her temperament, life and place; it...
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...Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán. She was the third daughter of four to Guillermo, who was Hungarian and Jewish, and Matilda, who was Spanish and Mexican/Indian. She was a huge tomboy as a child, which led to her being her father’s favorite. She did, unfortunately, suffer from health problems her whole life. She was a survivor of polio, which left her with a limp. A train car accident at the age of eighteen seriously injured her pelvis, spine, collarbone, and right leg; and she contracted Gangrene, leading to the amputation of her right leg below the knee in 1953. She had over thirty surgeries in her lifetime and suffered painfully her whole life, mostly due to the train car accident. This tragic accident led to the...
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...Frida Kahlo was born in July 6, 1907 in Mexico City. Kahlo changed that she was born in 1910 so people would directly associate her with the revolution. She was the third of four sisters. The youngest sister was Cristina. When she was six, she was struck with poliomyelitis on her right leg. Poliomyelitis is an spreadable disease that affects the nervous system and can cause someone to be paralysis. Frida’s leg became skinny and was put to bed for nine months. Her leg caused her to limp when she walked, after she was recovered. In 1922, Frida enrolled at the National Preparatory School. She was studying to be a teacher. A painter named Diego Rivera painted a mural in her school. There was a rumor that she said that she would have his children....
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...not only to depict raw honesty but to shed light on the actual society in which they live. Frida Kahlo, a painter of Mexican and Hungarian descent shows a landscape of her own mind but in a cross society of two cultures in Self-Portrait at the Border between Mexico and the United States.Robert Henri, of the Ashcan School, prided themselves with portrayal of harsh hardships American living for the middle and lower class past the glitz and glamour of the industry. Frida Kahlo spent time in Detroit, New York and San Francisco with her husband Diego Rivera as he worked on commissions. In the painting, Self-Portrait at the Border between Mexico and the United States (1932)Frida shows both societies and cultures on both sides of her as she symbolizes the border. On the left side her native Mexico shows its vibrant historical and cultural heritage with it’s Aztec pyramid and abundant plants in the lower left of the painting. In contrast to gleaming industrial buildings on Kahlo’s right side Mexico shows a pile of rubble which can indicate that Mexico is not as developed as the United States and hold more rural tendencies. On her right Kahlo decorates the United States with factories and buildings. Instead of plants growing from the ground the viewer can see various technological advances. Although she stands equally on both countries, in her hand a Mexican flag shows where her loyalties lay. Frida did this work with oil on tin. American painter Robert Henri strips New York City of all...
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...“Feet what do I want them for if I have wings to fly.” – Frida Kahlo (1995, p.134) Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist, lived all her life with physical illnesses, and her suffering is revealed plainly through her artwork. In 1953, her doctor decided to amputate her right leg at the knee due to gangrene. Frida expressed her fear in her diary with a painting of a yellowish cut leg and the above quote. Although the operation was successfully performed and she was able to walk with an artificial leg, an inevitable depression followed. She became deeply depressed and was no longer interested in her husband, Diego Rivera, who had been the entire world of her life. She lost the will to live and made suicide attempts (Herrera, 1963). A healthy mental state...
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...The Horrors of Her Own Reality She died leaving a trail of inspiration behind her. She died peacefully, finally free from the pain she endured from her realities. Frida Kahlo’s death was speculated as a possible overdose of morphine, but doctors stated her official cause of death as a Pulmonary Embolism. Although many regarded the artist’s death as a tragic event, Kahlo was finally free from the depression that surrounded the entirety of her life. She left behind dozens of self-portraits, all reflecting the pain that occurred in her five decades of life. Over the course of these years, Kahlo experienced the worst pain any artist could receive. Her art mirrors this, and personal agony would make her one of the most influential female artists...
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...Frida Kahlo: Su Vida en Un Lienzo Frida Kahlo es una de las más talentosas artistas en la historia. Era una mujer distinta, particularmente en sus autorretratos con cejas negras unidas y un bigote. Las características de su personalidad incluían su fuerza e independencia porque no se asustaba para expresar exactamente lo que sentía, y por eso, era muy valiente y servía como modelo de alguien que poseía mucha franqueza con ella misma. Para empezar, su personalidad era muy exquisita. Tenía un corazón tan grande como el mundo porque trataba a sus sirvientes como su propia familia. Siempre trataba a todos con igualdad y respeto. También, las actividades que ella le gustaba eran bailar, coquetear, y seducir a otras personas porque ella le encantaba divertirse y tenía un sentido de humor poco convencional, especialmente para una mujer, porque participaba en chistes inapropiados. En continuación, otro aspecto de la vida de Frida Kahlo que es interesante era su elección de ropa. Ella era mestiza y quería llevar ropa indígena. Frida estaba muy orgullosa de su herencia y raíces y nunca estaba asustaba por compartir este sentimiento con otras personas porque lo que sí es cierto es que le encantaba México, su patria, con todo su corazón. Su ropa, especialmente sus faldas, eran largas y a veces tocaban sus pies. Su ropa decorativa es evidente en su arte también. A pesar de que Frida tenía capacidades físicas que limitaba lo que podía hacer, vivía su vida haciendo todo lo que quería hacer...
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