Frida Kahlo was one of the most well-known artists of the 20th Century. Frida Kahlo was an icon of the 20th century, not only for her paintings but also because her story, which is one of freedom, independence, and freedom but also suffering, made her a global icon.
Frida Kahlo’s image has been very popular in our society. We can see her face and artwork on brightly colored t-shirts, cups and other merch. We must not forget that her life, and her artistic career, were marred by her suffering.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness,
Kahlo was initially diagnosed with mild depression. However, she experienced two major depressive episodes during her life and attempted suicide twice more. Many historians and researchers believe Kahlo may have suffered from a variety of mental illnesses including bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and dissociative identity disorder.
Let’s look at the impact that her chaotic life and her mental health had upon her art.
A Broken Body
Kahlo was just six years old when she was diagnosed as having polio. She was left with a severely crippled right leg and foot. So she began hiding her legs with long pants and Mexican skirts. This made her instantly recognisable. Her limp made her vulnerable to bullying and isolation from other children during her childhood.
The tragic accident that caused her to lose her husband in a trolley car accident was the one that made the most impact on her life. As she was returning from school with her boyfriend in 1925, she was riding on a bus that collided with a trolley car. Kahlo survived, but the accident had terrible consequences. An iron handrail struck her pelvis, breaking the bone. She also broke her legs, ribs and collarbone.
Both mental and physical pain
Frida Kallo is left with paintings: Frida Kallo, The Broken Column 1944, Museo Dolores Olmedo Mexico City, Mexico
Kahlo’s recovery from the accident coincided with the beginning of her artistic career. After three months of being in a complete-body cast, her father gifted her his paints and her mother a mirror that was mounted above her bed. As Kahlo stated, this is the beginning of many of her self-portraits.
Because I am often alone, I paint self-portraits. It is because I know the best person.
Her paintings strongly connect mental and physical suffering. Kahlo was permanently disabled by the accident and had to have numerous surgeries throughout her life. For example, the Broken Column shows that Kahlo felt like she was broken from the inside out. The corset is all that held her together. Her body is punctured with many spikes, and her eyes are full of tears.
Without Hope is a snapshot of Kahlo’s vulnerability. She was unable to eat due to her surgeries, and had to adhere to a strict diet. The artist is seen in this image, trapped in her bed weeping while the wooden easel over her holds a funnel and not a canvas. She seems to be able to see the viewer and almost ask for help.
Kahlo depicts herself as a wounded deer by nine arrows in this painting. Kahlo painted this after suffering from a bad spinal surgery that only made her more miserable. The subject is depicted in a desolate landscape that lacks vegetation, as in many of her other artworks. This shows Kahlo’s feelings of isolation and despair. Other interpretations of The Wounded deer are possible; critics believe that Kahlo wanted to show the pain of Diego Rivera’s second marriage.
Frida Rivera and Diego Rivera: A Stormy Love Story
Two great accidents have happened in my life. The first was the trolley and the second was Diego. Diego was the worst.
Kahlo wed Diego Rivera in 1929, a Mexican painter and muralist. He was nearly 43 years old when he married her at 22. He was already married twice and had had four children. The story was filled with lies and cheating, it was a passionate but complicated love story. Kahlo wrote that she believed they were meant for each other, even though he continued to hurt her. She couldn’t help but love him.
Divorce
They finally broke up in 1934 when Kahlo discovered that her husband was having an affair with her sister, Cristina Kahlo. Frida and Diego split up, and they divorced. A Few Small Nips is a story about a man who stabbed his wife with a knife several times. He said in court that he only gave her a few small nibs.
Kahlo regards herself as the woman who was stabbed: Diego had hurt Kahlo many times but the last one was fatal. He doesn’t see his fault, and he refuses to accept it.
The artist painted The Two Fridas after the divorce. It’s a double portrait of Kahlo, with two versions of her holding hands. The first Frida is wearing an English-style Victorian white dress and her heart is bleeding. The main artery that connects the women’s hearts is cut by the first Frida, and it stains the white dress. The second woman is wearing a traditional Tehuana gown. Her heart is still functioning and her hands have a small portrait Rivera in them.
Kahlo depicts two sides of her identity in this painting. One is loved by Diego and the other is left by him, bleeding to death.
Kahlo was able to have new experiences with people and eventually she married Diego in 1940. She couldn’t forget him. They were together until Kahlo died, in a passionate, degrading, and crazy love that she was able paint with all her power.
Abortion
Kahlo’s mental as well as physical health were also affected by her three miscarriages: The trolley accident and all the surgeries had impacted her chances of having children.
Kahlo recorded these words in her diaries:
My life was complete with painting. I lost three of my children, and there were many other things that could have made my life better. All of that was replaced by my painting. Work is my favorite.
Artist felt a deep need to fill that void within herself. She turned to her art for help. Art became a hobby that she enjoyed while she was recovering and it was the only way she could express the pain she felt.
Henry Ford Hospital
Kahlo created this artwork in response to her second abortion in Detroit, 1932. She represented herself as bleeding and crying on a hospital mattress with the backdrop of a cold, mechanical city.
Frida Kahlo suffering behind paintings: Frida Kahlo, Henry Ford Hospital, 1932, Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City, Mexico.
Six elements are attached to her hand by red string, which look like umbilical chords.
The perfect city’s mechanical functioning collides with the human movement of an artist’s pain. Kahlo is more isolated and lonely than she’d like because her body doesn’t function as it should.
Death and Rebirth
Kahlo was a person who often considered death throughout her life. It wasn’t something Kahlo had to be afraid of: death was an opportunity to live fully and to enjoy every moment.
In Mexican culture, death is a reminder to live life fully. El Dia de Los Muertos, a Mexican holiday that celebrates the return of the dead to their loved ones, is one of the most joyous.
An ikone der emanzipation, Kahlo believes that death can also be translated as rebirth. Death is a pathway to another kind of life. The artist’s relationship to death is illustrated in the Dream. Kahlo lies peacefully on her bed, surrounded by a plant that represents rebirth. Above her canopy bed, a skeleton is visible. It’s carrying some bombs and flowers.
Kahlo had a skeleton on her bed. She said it was a reminder that death could “explode”, come at any time. So you need to live your best life.
Kahlo was in a state of decline when she painted Thinking About Death. She kept thinking about death as a result. The same themes are seen in The Dream. The background is filled with green leaves, which is a symbol for life. Death is represented as a huge skull in an undefined landscape in the middle of her forehead. The artist’s eyes are not fixed on fear or despair; she is determined and ready to go.
Frida, who died from pulmonary embolism at her home in La Casa Azul in 1954, was also a widow. She said that she had spoken the following before her death:
I wish that the end is joyous. I will never return.
Art Therapy
Frida Kahlo was, and always will be, an artist unique. She stated that she was still influenced by Surrealism even though she had met it.
Although they thought I was a Surrealist I wasn’t. I have never dreamt. I created my reality.
She did not want to show her subconsciousness but she wanted to let go of all her emotions, good and bad. Kahlo saw art as more than a profession or a way to express herself. Art was her therapy. It was the only way she could express the pain she felt and it gave meaning to her turbulent life.
We see elements we’ve seen before in her other paintings, such as roots, flowers, and skeletons, even in the Surrealist painting, What the Water Gave Me. All of those symbols are a representation of actual events in her personal life.
Kahlo is unique because she accepted her suffering and used art to make it better, to help others. Kahlo’s art is still beloved today and universally loved because it helps us to understand that we are not the only ones in our pain and that we can’t hide our problems.
We can endure so much more than what we think.
