I don’t need my feet. I have wings.
- It was said by the famous Frida Kahlo when the doctors wanted to amputate her leg and that’s the point. She was living in bad reality but her art was bigger than that. Her art was representing a pain and glory in the same time. She was sick from her childhood and her life was in the sign of that illness, but not just in the sing of that.
When we think about grate Mexican artist, we think about colors and pain. Her colors were strong because her pain was so big.
Grate Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. SOURCE
I don’t paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my reality.
Her reality was full of passion, love, betrayal and despair. She was loved but first she was disappointed a lot of time. She painted her reality because she couldn’t run from herself. That what she was deep inside she shows in 45 portraits. She loved to paint portraits and she sad once:
I know best myself.
'Self Portrait', 1940 (oil on board) SOURCE
Frida Kahlo was one of the most influent painters in 20th century but that what is more interesting is how she was created her artist. She didn’t search for inspiration somewhere in the world, she found it in herself.
When we speak about art of grate Frida Kahlo, first we have to meet her personal file, because it was big inspiration for her. In the portraits she wanted to present all her personal pain. She dreamed big, she loved strong and she lived in the fullness. All those things we are able to recognize in her work.
Love and art
I got two accidents. One when the tram hit me, and the other is Diego.
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Mexican artist SOURCE
Diego was famous Mexican painter. He was big love of Frida Cahlo and the most important man in her life. Theirs relation was full of passion but first full of betrayal.
He was older then her more than 20 years, but he stays the biggest inspiration of her. In the way how he inspired her life, he inspired her works too. Maybe, she would never started to paint if she didn’t meet Diego Rivera. He caused the most beautiful and faintest feelings in her. She couldn’t live with him, but she couldn’t live without him too. He had a lot of women in the time when they were in a marriage.
In the time of intimate disappointment, Frida painted the best of her works. She can be a proof that artist can be born just in a moment when you have something inside you and you can’t live with that. That what is more than yourself can became an art work. Artist was that force what made Frida alive.
'Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird' 1940 (oil on canvas) SOURCE
In her portraits we can see some kind of mythological objects and animals. That’s because she wanted to get deeply in the sense of Mexican mythology like one of the biggest inspirations. She wanted to find symbols of her tragedy and moment of identification with something so important.
Usually we can hear that artistic work of Frida Kahlo is very colorful, but we have to ask ourself what those colors can be in symbolical way. Those colors are not symbol of life happiness, there are symbol of life pain. They are strong and aim to highlight spaces of pain fullness. That what we see in Fridas life is presenting in light colors but with idea of tragedy.
She was living in opposites. Those opposites created one world in one personality.
The Two Fridas
The Two Fridas, 1926 (oil on canvas) SOURCE
In this painting we can see sense of Fridas life and the point of duality. That duality can be overrated just with emotions. We can see two Fridas connected with arteries, like a symbol of hart.
One Frida is women in traditional Mexcican costumes and other one in modern European clothes. That what is different was moment of her life, and that what is the some are emotions. She sad once that this painting is representing her pain because Diego left her. She is changed before and after him, but hart stays the same.
Hart is connected the two Fridas.
We can speak about sense of Frida Kahlo artistic work but the point is in the other side.
Who was Frida Kahlo? How love make her big and destroyed her? Why the red colour is the most important in her paintings?
Maybe because red is symbol of love or symbol of blood.
In the end it stays story about Frida – women of passion and women of pain.
That what was symbol of her was love. After that we have nothing to say more.
She chose that love destroy her but also to make her big.
Thanks for reading!