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Frida Kahlo's Art

Frida Kahlo's art reflects a compelling stoicism with respect to the suffering with which her life was filled. She was born in 1907, died in 1954, and during her life she experienced an incredible array of serious health problems, including polio at the age of six, which left her right leg weakened permanently; a streetcar accident at the age of eighteen which left her seriously injured; severe internal bleeding and re-hospitalization at the age of twenty-five; spinal surgery at the age of 39; hospitalization four years later for recurring spinal problems; the amputation of her right leg because of gangrene three years later; bronchial pneumonia the same year (1954), the year she died. These are only the most extreme physical problems; she suffered on a daily basis from various chronic pains associated with her accidents and diseases. In addition to her physical problems, Kahlo suffered emotionally and psychologically from her life-long turbulent relationship with famed muralist Diego Rivera, who abused her in a number of ways, including having an affair with Kahlo's sister.

As might be expected, these problems and associated pains in Kahlo's life found their way into her art. The bulk of her paintings are self-portraits, and the expression on those portraits is uniformly stoic, self-contained, powerful with a kind of transcendent resignation.

While we do know that many of the major features of Kahlo's life --- especially her physical problems and her troubled relationship with Rivera---did in fact occur, it remains true that Kahlo approached her own image as a work of art, creating and recreating as she desired. As we read in Zamora, Frida "seems to have wanted to invent her own biography, to plot her own myth and legend . . . She invented a birth date and perhaps also a birthplace . . . She recounted stories with so many changes drawn from her imagination that it complicated . . . discovery of the facts" (Zamora, 1990, ...

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Frida Kahlo's Art. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:53, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1704611.html