Frida Kahlo beyond the “painter of pain”:

Kahlo’s artwork through the lenses of cultural and political identity

Final Draft

Xhensila Gaba

Course: Art History II

Instructor: Dr. Kosta Giakoumis

Spring 2012

Introduction

Frida Kahlo was a contemporary Mexican artist the paintings of whom provoked the

emergence of a revival feminist movement in art. Frida’s paintings have caused lots of curiosity

among the public including scholars, art critiques, art lovers and even common people. Her

unique artworks grabbed the attention of the masses after the publication of her biography by

Hayden Herrera in 1970s. Frida became one of the most debated and loved artists of the 20th

century and a kind of Fridamania soon emerged in the country by providing her with an entrance

ticket to the history of art. People got fascinated by her life story and the way Frida had reflected

her crucial life events in her paintings. Most of Frida’s work consists of self-portraits in which

she depicts her inner suffering, both physical and emotional. Being physically handicapped after

a severe bus accident did not impede Frida to paint, but on the contrary, the pains in her life

served as the main source for Frida’s inspiration. Many publications, articles and PhD research

papers followed afterwards by making of Frida a cult.

People seem to be more attracted by her personal life rather than her art, which was seen

more of a tool to express her emotions during the difficult struggle between life and death. For

most of time, Frida’s art was shadowed by the peculiarity of her life. Her paintings were mostly

psychoanalyzed rather than analyzed beyond the subjective dimension. However, there was

much more in the paintings of Frida than just portraying herself and her emotional mood at

certain events of her life. The cultural and political identity, despite the personal identity, of the

artists were reflected in her paintings as well. Frida artistically engaged in reviving her cultural

identity by emphasizing her Mexican heritage. Aztec imagery was used as main motif in most of

her paintings. Moreover, Frida was a political activist at the time as well. Thus she included her

political beliefs and ideas in her work. Since she was young she had joined the Communist Party

and believed in the power of socialism, although her beliefs do not coincide with the

international anti-US stance of Stalin at the time.

Thesis statement

Frida’s art was groundbreaking, not only because she dared to express explicitly and

publicly her emotions and her life events, but because her artworks need and should be

interpreted through pursuing a multidimensional analysis including the personal, cultural and

political identity.

The aim of this paper is to provide evidences that the artworks of Frida Kahlo go beyond

the autobiographical dimension on which scholars have put emphasis and to argue that her art

has been inspired as much by her cultural heritage and political beliefs as by her personal

suffering.

Methodology

I would engage into an iconographic analysis of Frida Kahlo’s art through touching upon

three major aspects: personal identity, culture and politics. I would make use of some of Frida’s

paintings and also her biography in order to come to certain conclusions.

Frida’s peculiar life story

First, it is crucial to know facts and events of Frida’s life which served as the primary

source of her artistic inspiration. In fact, it is hard to detach Frida’s personal life from her artistic

career. The truth is that Frida had never thought she would become an artist, let alone of such a

great dimension. She registered to study medicine at first, because she wanted to become a

doctor. In her young age, she suffered from polio which left her physically damaged by

shortening her left leg. This was the first tragedy in her life. On 1925, her life and her dreams

were all deviated due to a severe bus accident in which she was left injured with various

fractures in her back, her legs and her pelvis. She managed to survive after various surgeries, but

the accident left Frida physically and emotionally hurt and all the damage she received would

become later a significant moment in the course of her life. In the following years, she suffered

several miscarriages and abortions and endured thirty surgeries on her spine, leg and foot. All her

suffering was finalized with the amputation of her right leg in 1953, and later on her death.

Frida married the famous Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, which she often refers as the

second “accident” in her life. They went through a tumultuous relationship by getting divorced

and then re-married and this mainly because of Diego’s adventures with other woman and

Frida’s experiments in bisexual relations. During this period Frida began to paint. She started to

express her pain via her paintings as if she wanted to “paint off” her misfortune, suffering and

pain. Her work is made up mostly of self-portraits. She tried to represent crucial moments of her

life in her work by explicitly showing her physical and emotional pain to the public.

Once knowing these sequences of tragedies in her life, one have to question where did

this woman find the strength that allowed her to paint? Frida was not only an unfortunate person

enduring such a painful life, but she was also a woman living at a particular place and time.

Thus, most of her strength might have had the source in Frida believing in her philosophical

ideas, which framed by her feminist personality, allowed her to go on with participating and

influencing the public sphere. Following I will focus on the two aspects, culture and politics,

which compose the philosophical beliefs of Frida as a Mexican and as a Marxist supporter.

Culture: Revival of Mexican imagery in Frida’s work

Frida was born in Mexico, although her parents were not of Mexican origin. She depicted

her origin in her paintings by using Mexican imagery and artifacts. It is true that Frida portrayed

her personal pain, but it should not be neglected that all the imagery she uses in portraying

herself has cultural significance as well. The imagery was not there by chance, but they were

carefully chosen by the artist. Frida lived in the period of the post-Mexican Revolution. During

the nineteenth century, there was an increased interest in reviving the Mexican nationalism. In

the twentieth century, Mexican indigenista tendencies refused the Spanish idealization of Aztec

Mexico and identified the Aztecs as the last independent rulers of an indigenous political country

(Barnet-Sanchez, 1997). Therefore, there was interest to focus on the early civilization and its art

in particular during this period in order to emphasize the unifying nationalistic features. One of

the favored motifs of Frida is Coatlicue, the amazing and fearful goddess figure of the Aztecs. In

none of her paintings does Frida portray the complete form of the deity, but she continuously

makes reference to the severed neck and skull necklace. For example, in Self-portrait with thorn

necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, Kahlo paints herself with a thorn necklace which makes her

neck bleed and thus referring to the Coatlicue figure. Moreover, the dead hummingbird in the

painting is a sacred symbol to the god of Tenochtitlan, the god of the sun and of war (Helland,

1990).

Frida also uses images of the heart and the skeleton which are taken from Aztec imagery.

The three above-mentioned symbols are crucial in Aztec art and played an important role in

depicting Frida’s Mexicanidad as well. Mexicanidad was a romantic expression of nationalism

that took place after the Mexican revolution and focused upon traditional art and artifacts that

were common to all indigenistas (Helland, 1990). But Frida added a new dimension in her

Mexicanidad. She revered Aztec traditions beyond those of other pre-Spanish native cultures by

integrating the powerful pre-Columbian society that had served as a unifying force for the

Middle Americas through conquest. The works that represent at most the pre-Columbian features

are My nurse and I, 1937, where the nurse holding Frida in her arms is wearing an Olmec mask;

The tree of hope, 1946, shows the images of the sun and moon, which were considered as

symbols for the duality of life in the pre-Columbian society; The love Embrace of the Universe,

1949, in this painting, Frida and Diego are embraced by the universe personified as a pre-

Columbian deity (Garber, 1992).

Kahlo as a political rebel

Since an early age, Kahlo has been a critic of her society. When she was a teenager, she

attended the National Preparatory School and she was part of a group of young people who

showed sympathy for socialism and cultural nationalism. Later, Kahlo joined the Mexican

Communist Party during the 1920s (Bakewell, 1993). The work Marxism will give health to the

sick, 1954, shows Frida at the center of the picture and the face of Karl Marx in the sky above

and also an unfinished portrait of Joseph Stalin. Frida loved Stalin and she remained a Stalinist

until her death.

Furthermore, being an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist was another political

commitment of Frida which was reflected in her work as well. The painting What the water gave

to me, an artwork which was considered to fit more the surrealist movement in Frida’s art,

depicts a private moment in which Frida is having a bath and she meditates upon her whole life.

Among many features, there can be seen two images: a Spanish galleon on the left of the canvas

and the Empire State Building coming out of a mountain on the right. These symbols imply a

historical continuity between the imperialism of Spain during the 16th century and imperialism of

the United States in the 20th century (Helland, 1990). Mexican people and their culture have

suffered from the presence of these two countries by being exploited in their natural resources

and wealth. Even though the forms of exploitations have changed, the impact upon the Mexican

people was the same: damaging their economy and making the people poorer.

Other paintings are explicit criticisms of the United States. In the painting Self-portrait on

the border line between Mexico and the United states, 1932, Frida puts herself in a landscape

between the industrialized US and a pre-industrial Mexico. She paints the United States’ part

with three machines which have electronic roots. One of them converts into the roots of the

Mexican plant and the other root is located beneath the pedestal where Frida stands. There are

factories and smoke in the US side, and this all landscape contrasts with the Mexican side which

produces plants from the fertile land and whom ancestors belong to the great civilizations of the

pre-Columbian world represented by Main Temple at Tenochtitlan. The entire idea that this

painting conveys is criticism about the North American industrialism. Another painting showing

her anti-US stance is My dress hangs there, 1933, which reflects a critique to US

industrialization by depicting features of high-class people such as telephone, sports trophy and

also expressing their hypocrisy by painting a coin in the cross of the church (Little, 2009).

Frida Kahlo was a political activist which despite her physical condition never gave up

fighting for a unified country under the philosophy of socialism. Few days before she died, Frida

attended a public protest against the US imperialism. Her whole life and death also were of

political significance.

Conclusion

Frida Kahlo might be considered as an outcast from the artists that are simply committed

to make visual and public their personal pain, being it physical or emotional pain. This was not

the case of Frida. Frida Kahlo belonged to the generation of the Mexican revolution and

Mexicanidad, therefore she was influenced by the ideologies and beliefs of the time. She painted

images and symbols from Aztec culture, thus reviving the traditional art of Mexico as a unifying

factor for the people. Moreover, Frida painted her political beliefs as well. She liked socialism

and believed that if the economic and social life of Mexico was arranged according to Marxist

ideas, then it would make the Mexican people better off. However, Frida’s interest for socialism

and her disguise for capitalism should not be confused with the political authoritarianism of

Stalin.

All these dimensions makes of Frida Kahlo a complex artist that besides depicting her

personal pain and struggle, she mixed both her cultural heritage and political ideas in her

artwork. Frida was a vanguard as a Third World cultural nationalist, even before the notion

becomes part of the scholastic language.

References

Bakewell, L. (1993). Illustrations to Frida Kahlo:A contemporary feminist reading. Journal of

woman studies, 13(3), 139-151,

Barnet-Sanchez, H. (1997). Frida Kahlo: Her art and life revisited. Latin American Research

Review, 32(3), 243-257,

Garber, E. (1992). Art critics on Frida Kahlo: A comparison of feminist and non-feminist voices.

National Art Education Association, 45(2), 42-48,

Helland, J. (1990). Identity, culture and politics in the paintings of Frida Kahlo. Woman’s Art

Journal, 8-13,

Little, S. (2009). Frida Kahlo’s autobiography: A life in painting. Cross-sections, vol 5,

References about the artworks used in the analysis

Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait, 1940, Oil on canvas, 24 1/2 x 18 3/4 in, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin

Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States, 1932, Oil on metal, 31,7 x 35 cm, Private collection

Frida Kahlo, Tree of Hope, 1946, Oil on Masonite, 22 x 16 in, Isadore Ducasse Fine Arts, New York

Frida Kahlo, What the Water Gave Me, 1938, Oil on canvas, 38 x 30 in, Isadore Ducasse Fine Arts, New York

Frida Kahlo, My Dress Hangs There, 1933. Oil and collage on Masonite. 45.8 x 50.2 cm. Private collection.

Frida Kahlo, The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, and Senor Xolotl, 1949, Oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 23 7/8 in, Collection of Jorge Contreras Chacel, Mexico City

Frida Kahlo, My Nanny and I, 1937, Oil on metal, Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City

Frida Kahlo, Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick, 1954, oil on canvas, 28.8 x 23.8 in. / 73 x 60 cm,