Ui jin Jeong
Prof. Kyle Brebner
IERW (04)
8 November 2015
Frida
Kahlo, a Female Artist of Pain
With intense and vibrant colors,
Frida Kahlo tried to emphasize her bold unibrow and mustache in a lot of
self-portraits to express her strongness unlike other female painters. Frida
was a Mexican painter who painted her painful experiences and passion on the
canvas. In her works, it is easy to find naked organs in her body, a dead fetus
and her hurt body. In fact, when she was 18, she got serious injuries on her
whole body due to a collision with a streetcar during her traveling. Also, she
was suffered from sadness and pain because of her husband, Diego Rivera’s
affairs and disability for having a baby. Though she was in terrible conditions,
she accepted her life and tried to face her pain by painting these experiences
without hiding anything. Therefore, her paintings are intense and impressive.
One of her paintings, The Two Fridas,
is a good example which presents well her suffering from divorce with Diego. In
this painting, Frida wanted to express the two of Frida herself by contrasting painful
looking during her marriage and relaxed looking when beloved.
When you look at The Two Fridas, you can see the two selfs
of Frida grabbing each other’s hand and sitting on the chair. The bodies’
hearts and arteries of both are visible and connected. One is wearing a white
wedding dress with a few stains of blood on it. Her heart has nothing in it. On
her right hand, there are scissors that seem to have been used to cut her
artery. Moreover, her face looks sad and gloomy. These mean that her married
life was such a hard time to her because of Diego’s affairs and not being loved
by him. For example, the empty heart and cut artery imply that she had an agony
like death from the divorce, as if her heart had been broken and artery had
been severed. In addition, the reason why she drew herself like that as the one
wearing a wedding dress depicts her hard married life.
On the contrary, the other one
facing the one wearing wedding dress is wearing Mexican traditional clothes,
looking strong and healthy. Also she had an intact heart and artery so that she
looks comfortable and relaxed. Furthermore, given that she loved to wear traditional
clothes of her nation and draw folk art of Mexican culture, she wanted to
express her peaceful state when she was beloved. Since the painting was
completed after the passage of document for divorce, she might have reminded of
happy memory with Diego by drawing this. As a result, the two separate Fridas
mean that she suffered from sorrow and a great sense of loss about parting.
The Two Fridas,
one of her works figuring well herselfs with different appearances, involves
her contrasting feelings toward her stormy but passionate marriage life. This
means she was not reluctant to show her pain frankly as a subject of paintings.
Therefore her strong and steel-like mind is respectable for me. Furthermore, I
liked her uncompromising attitude to the depiction of the female experience and
form. In conclusion, including her hard and strenuous situation in her painting
plainly and creatively instead of feeling afraid of facing her tragedies, her
works deserve to be celebrated for the art of pain and passion.
You made some good improvements by clarifying some points and adding more details. You also made the introduction and conclusions stronger. Your thesis statement could be strengthened by specifically listing the key points you will discuss in the body. The the topic sentences in your body paragraphs should restate or paraphrase key words from the thesis statement.
답글삭제I cannot remember the time when i appreciated The Two Fridas! umm.... I am really curious the time....!! Anyway, It was kind of interesting painting for me and your essay made me remind me of the painting and the feeling impressed ! Moreover, thanks to you, I could get more specific information of The Two Fridas;-)
답글삭제Actually, when I learned about the life of Frida for the first time was last year, especially in the class of English Reading. I felt so impressive about her passion for art and love that I went the exhibition held in Soma museum in the last summer. Unfortunately, the exhibition was end in the September, though.
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