140. The Two Fridas, Frida Kahlo

 

The Two Fridas
Frida Kahlo. 1939 C.E. Mexico. Oil on canvas

She typically painted self-portraits using vibrant colours in a style that was influenced by cultures of Mexico as well as influences from European Surrealism. Her self-portraits were often an expression of her life and her pain.

Form

A juxtaposition of two self portraits. Her two hearts are twined together by veins that are cut by scissors at one end and lead to a portrait of her husband, artist Diego Rivera, at the other. This was painted at the time of their divorce. The two figures are framed by a barren landscape with a wildly active sky in the background.

Function

Although each of her images presents a consistent, iconic likeness of the artist, collectively they give expression to something much more profound, an exploration of identity that ecompasses gender, nationality, class, politcis, and the artist’s own physical experience in her body.

CONTEXT: 

Surrealism- sought to represent an unseen world of dreams, subconscious thoughts, and unspoken communication. 

It went in two directions 

    - the abstract tradition of biomorphic forms 

    - the veristic tradition of using reality-based subjects put together in unusual ways 

Surrealism - meant to puzzle, challenge, and fascinate. NOT didactic or clearly understood

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City]

CONTENT:

• Juxtaposition of two self-portraits
• left: a Spanish lady in white lace 
• right: a Mexican peasant 
• stiffness and provincial quality of Mexican folk art served as direct inspiration FORM
• her two hearts are intertwined by veins, which are cut by scissors at one end 
• they lead to a portrait of her husband, artist Rivera 
• painted at the time of their divorce CONTEXT
• infertile land in the background, figures against a lively sky 
• vein = umbilical cord 
• associating husband as a husband and a son 
• blood on lap suggests many abortions and miscarriages and surgeries bc of polio 
• Kahlo rejected the Surrealism label 

Innovation

While André Breton called Frida a fellow Surrealist, she was quick to respond that it was not dreams she portrayed. She portrayed her own nightmarish reality.

Artistic Decision

This image was created in 1939 when she was devastated and depressed by her divorce from Diego. Her mental anguish and turmoil resulted in some of her finest painting. It was displayed in in Mexico City in the International Surrealism Exhibition, and again in NY at the Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art Exhibit. “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

Interpretation

The Two Fridas incorporates Kahlo’s commentary on the struggle facing Mexicans in the early 20th century in defining their nation- al cultural identity. The Frida on the right (representing indigenous culuture) appears in a Tehuana dress, the traditional costume of Zapotec women from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, whereas the Frida on the left (representing imperialist forces) wears a European style white lace dress. The heart, depicted here in such dramatic fashion, was an important symbol in the art of the Aztecs, whim Mexican nationalists idealized as the last independent rulers of their land.

Details

Kahlo’s work often graphically exposes human anatomy, a topic she knew well after a childhood bout with polio deformed her right leg and a bus accident left her disabled and unable to bear children when she was eighteen years old. She would endure 32 operations as a result of this accident. 

Cross-Cultural: 

- Self Portrait with Saskia - Rembrant 

- Vigée Le Brun - Self-Portrait