Frida Kallo is one of the most recognizable artists of 20th-century. Her paintings are a major part of what made Frida Kahlo an international icon. But her story is also a powerful one. It tells the story of freedom, emancipation and suffering.
Frida Kallo is a very well-known image in our society. You can find her face on t-shirts and cups with bright colors, as well as artworks. However, we must remember that her life and artistic career were marred by the trauma of her childhood.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness states:
Kahlo was diagnosed as having minor depression. She also experienced two major depression episodes and attempted suicide during her lifetime. Many historians and researchers suspect that Kahlo had a range of mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and dissociative disorder.
Let’s find out what her turbulent life and mental state had on her art.
A Broken Body
Kahlo was 6 years old when she was first diagnosed with polio. Because her leg and right foot were left crippled by the disease, Kahlo began to hide them with long trousers and Mexican-style skirts. Her style was instantly recognizable. Due to her limp, her siblings bullied her and made her feel isolated.
However, the most tragic incident that would have the biggest impact on her entire life was a fatal trolley car accident. Her bus, which she was riding with her boyfriend to school, collided into a trolley vehicle in 1925. Kahlo survived but suffered terrible injuries: An iron handrail crushed her pelvis and fractured the bone.
Physical and mental pain
Frida KAHLO, The Broken Column, 1944 Museo Dolores Olmedo Mexico City.
Kahlo, an ikone der emanzipation began her artistic career after she recovered from the accident. Her father gave her his paintings while her mother mounted a mirror above her bed. She was unable to move for three months after the accident. Kahlo said that this was the beginning of her self-portraits.
Self-portraits are something I do because I’m often the only one, and because I know me best.
In her paintings, physical and mental suffering are closely linked. Kahlo’s accident permanently damaged her health and required her to have many surgeries throughout her entire life. For example, The Broken Column depicts how she felt inside and out. It is as if her corset was all that kept her together. Her face is filled with tears as many spikes poke through her body.
Without Hope captures a time in Kahlo’s life when she was really vulnerable. Her lack of appetite after the surgeries made her feel starved so she had to stick to a strict diet. The artist appears to be trapped in her bed and weeping. Meanwhile, the wooden easel that is above her holds a funnel, instead of a painting. She stares at the viewer, almost as if asking for help.
Kahlo is depicted as a deer that has been wounded by nine bullets in this painting. Kahlo painted the painting after having failed spinal surgery, which only made her struggle even more. Like many other artworks the subject is situated in a desolated, empty landscape. This reflects the artist’s feeling of isolation as well as her despair. Others have different interpretations for The Wounded Deer. Some critics suggest that Kahlo was also trying to portray the pain of Diego Rivera’s second marriage.
Frida Rivera and Diego Rivera: Stormy Love Story
In my entire life, there have been two major accidents. The trolley was one, and Diego was the other. Diego was the worst.
Kahlo was married to Diego Rivera, a Mexican artist and muralist in 1929. He was 43, and she was 22. He had been married twice before and had four kids. It was a complicated, but passionate love story that was full of lies and cheating. Kahlo wrote in her letter that she believed that they were meant to be together no matter what. Even though he hurt her, she couldn’t stop falling in love with him.
Divorce
In 1934, however, they came to an end. Kahlo learned of the affair between her husband (and her sister Cristina Kahlo) in 1934. Frida split with Diego and divorced. A Few Small Nips describes a news story in which a man beat his wife repeatedly with a knife and then said in court, “But all that I did was give her some small nips!”
Kahlo considers herself the one who was stabbed. Diego did it many times, but the most fatal. Like the murderer, he does not understand his mistakes and is unwilling to make amends.
The artist painted The Two Fridas, after the divorce. It’s a double self portrait, in which two versions Kahlo are holding hands. The first Frida, wearing a Victorian-style white Victorian dress in Europe, is showing her heart and is bleeding. The main artery connecting the two women’s heart is cut by the first Frida. It stains her white dress. The second one is dressed in a traditional Tehuana and has Rivera’s portrait in her hand.
Kahlo’s painting shows us two sides to her identity. Diego loves one side and she leaves the other alone.
Kahlo went on to have more experiences with different people. But she finally married Diego for the second and final time in 1940. They were married until Kahlo’s passing in a wild, passionate, and deteriorating love she was able portray with all its cruelty and power.
Abortion
Kahlo was also suffering from mental and physical problems after three miscarriages. The trolley accident, as well as all her surgeries, had affected her chances of ever having children.
Kahlo’s diaries contained the following:
Painting was the highlight of my life. I lost three children and had to give up a lot of other things that would have helped me get through my terrible life. My painting replaced all of these. My opinion is that work is the best.
The artist felt a deep inside void that she wanted to fill with her art. She discovered art as a hobby while in recovery. It was her only way to express the pain and suffering she was experiencing.
Henry Ford Hospital
Kahlo created the artwork after her second Detroit abortion in 1932. In it, she depicted herself bleeding and crying on a hospital bed with the cold, mechanical backdrop.
Frida Kahlo suffering behind paintings: Frida Kahlo, Henry Ford Hospital, 1932, Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City, Mexico.
Red strings attach six elements to her hand, which look similar to umbilical cords. They include the fetus she just lost, Rivera’s orchid, the hospital machine, the pelvic bone and an orthopedic cast of her pelvis zone.
The mechanicality of a perfectly functioning city meets the humanness of the artist’s suffering. Kahlo’s body isn’t working as well as it should, which makes her feel more isolated and alone in a place she doesn’t call home.
Death and Rebirth
Kahlo thought a lot about death throughout her entire life. However, it wasn’t something Kahlo found depressing: For her, death was a reason for living fully and experiencing everything.
Death is also a part of Mexican culture. El Dia de Los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) is one of the most joyful Mexican celebrations. It is believed that the Day of the Dead is a day when dead people will visit their loved ones.
Kahlo sees death as rebirth. It is simply a way to another life. The Dream shows the artist’s relationship towards death. Kahlo is lying in her bed, wrapped by a plant which symbolizes rebirth. The skeleton that is above Kahlo’s canopy bed holds some bombs and contains flowers.
Kahlo actually had an actual skeleton over her bed. It was a reminder of death, and a way for her to remember that death can “explode”, arrive at any moment. You should live your life as best you can.
Kahlo’s health was rapidly deteriorating when she painted Thinking About Death. As a result, death was something that she continued to think about. The themes we see in Thinking About Death are the same as in The Dream. The background features green leaves as a symbol of life and the central figure of death is depicted as an enormous skull on an undefined land. The artist’s gaze does not seem frightened, or desperate. She looks determined and ready for anything.
Frida died in her home from pulmonary embolism, La Casa Azul, on March 31, 1954. Before she passed away, Frida said:
I hope that my exit is joyful. I’m sure that I won’t be able to return.
Art as Therapy
Frida Kallo was, and will always be, considered a unique artist. Even though she was influenced and met Surrealism, she said:
They believed I was a Surrealist, but it wasn’t true. I never painted dreams. I made my reality.
She didn’t want her subconsciousness to be represented, but she did want to let her emotions go, both good and evil. Kahlo was not just a career or a part of a movement: art was therapy. It was her only way to express the pain and gave meaning in her chaotic life.
Even in the Surrealist masterpiece, What the Water Gave Me (which is her most famous painting), we can see elements from her earlier paintings such as flowers, roots and the skeleton. However, all of these symbols refer to real events in her life.
Kahlo’s uniqueness is due to the fact that she felt and accepted her pain and then used art to transform it into something better and more useful for others. Kahlo is still loved for her art, which makes us realize that we are not alone when we experience pain.
The bottom line is that we can take much more than we think.
