Frida Kahlo Essays - Visual Arts, Arts, Self-portraits, Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo Essays - Visual Arts, Arts, Self-portraits, Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo was a Mexican self-portrait artist who was also a feminist icon. She was born on July 6, 1907, in Coyocoan, Mexico. Frida started to paint after she was roughly injured in a bus accident. She has two older sisters and one younger sister. When she was 6, she had polio which caused her to be bedridden for a few months. At the age of 18, her right leg and pelvis was damaged due to a horrific bus accident. This lead her to a lifetime of chronic pain and caused her to limp when she walked but she was encouraged to do more activities to help her recover. Frida Kahlo began painting in the late 1920s. In 1928, a Mexican muralist named Diego Rivera encouraged her artwork and the two of them married on the next year. By 1932, Frida added more graphic and surrealistic elements in her artwork. As we can see in her self-portraits, the work was deeply personal, including the story of her second miscarriages.After being diagnosed that she had gangrene in her right foot, Frida spent nine months of her life in the hospital and had quite a few operations during that time. But, she continued to paint and support political causes despite having limited mobility. A few months later, part of her right leg was amputated in order to stop the spread of the gangrene. When she was deeply depressed, Frida was hospitalized again in April 1954 due to her poor health, and the fact that some people reported she attempted suicide. The next two months, she returned to the hospital with bronchial pneumonia. Couple of days after her 47th birthday, Frida died on July 13, 1954 at her house.Since her death, Frida's fame as an artist has only grown. In 1958, her beloved Blue House was opened as a museum. Frida was viewed by many people as an icon of female creativity. The feminist movement of the 1970s led to renewed interest in her life and work. In the early 21st century, her life was the subject of a film entitled "FRIDA'", starring Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo and Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera. Below, I have chosen five paintings that she painted, all the five of them were self-portraits. Frida Kahlo was known as the master of self-portraits and he portraits was known to be the finest ever created. Most of her paintings were self-portraits. She love to paint herself because she was often alone and she said that she was the subject she knew best. She often include many features to express her feelings and the condition she had at that time. Self-portrait with Monkey (1938) Mexicans believe that monkey is a symbol of lust. But as i can see from the portrait, monkey was depicted as a gentle creature with tenderness. The monkey even put its arm around Frida's neck, which shows that the monkey seems wants to protect her. The background in this painting is a big curtain of leaves, which she often use on the other portraits she painted later. Behind her serious and straight face, there seems to be an expression of sadness. It looks like that she is dealing with all her problems. Thinking About Death (1943) Throughout her life, Frida was tortured by numerous illness. Polio at age 6 had left Frida Kahlo's right leg thinner than her left. Some scholars believe Kahlo also suffered from spina bifida. And, at age 18, Kahlo suffered 11 fractures in her right leg and a crushed and dislocated foot, among many other injuries, when her bus collided with a trolley car. She underwent as many as 35 operations over the course of her life as a result of the accident. This self portrait was painted in 1943 in which during that time, Frida's health was becoming worse and she had to be bedridden most of the time. Due to all of those conditions, it is absolutely making sense that she made this painting entitled Thinking About Death'. The death is symbolized by the painting of a skull and crossbones on her forehead. Again, she put herself on a background of green leaves, which is also known as a symbol of