Introduction
Frida Kahlo is renowned for using symbolism in her creative paintings to portray her personal experiences via subliminal and imaginative lenses. In addition to depicting her emotional suffering, adversity, and fragility, Kahlo included societal and political principles in her artwork. Her paintings consistently include surrealism and social realism. The revered figure of Frida serves as a symbol of Mexican history and Mexicanidad and sheds light on Kahlo’s intimate ties to her indigenous roots. Mexicanidad is a conception of what constitutes Mexican as expressed via items, styles, or concepts. It eschewed European concepts and valued Mexico’s indigenous past. In this sense, Frida Kahlo’s art is a tribute to her Mexican roots and a deeper search for her true identity and peace of mind, as expressed in paintings like The Wounded Table and Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States.
The Essence of Mexicanidad
Mexico aimed to regain its national identity in the middle of the 20th century. Painters and intellectuals equally strove to understand how the rebuilt community would differentiate itself after the Mexican Revolution, a protracted era of social turmoil and territorial warfare that altered the region (Carrico 2022, 19). Although numerous movements at this time pursued utopia and aspired to the future, there was a group that placed more of an emphasis on studying the precolonial period and capturing the core of Mexicanity from that (Carrico 2022, 19). The Spanish term for this concept was Mexicanidad, while the Nahuatl name was Mexicayotl (Carrico 2022, 19). The Mexicanidad held that indigenous cultures that had survived had preserved an ethnic heritage distinct from and recaptured from the aggressive industrial growth and de facto authoritarian rule that came before the upheaval and that this identity must act as a model for contemporary Mexico.
Influences of Frida Kahlo’s Art and the Background of the Artist
Prominent Mexican artist Frida Kahlo developed a unique, indigenous, and whimsical technique to express her views about sexuality, class, ethnicity, and post-colonial position. She was influenced by the folklore of her birthplace (Taheri 2020, 2). Her works tell the tale of her experience in addition to women’s way of life in her day (Flores 2020, 54). The paintings of Frida are profound, complex, symbolic, and full of underlying meanings. Because of this, it is impossible to interpret her symbols at a peek without being acquainted with her cultural background and personal history.
To further understand the influencing factors on Kahlo’s art, it is vital to analyze her biography. For people to immediately connect Frida with present Mexico, she repeatedly said that she was born in 1910, when the Mexican Revolution began (Herrera 2022, 23). This particularity effectively exposes the audience to a unique personality, marked from an early age by a strong feeling of independence and defiance against conventional social and moral norms, shifted by enthusiasm and passion, proud of her Mexicanidad and traditional beliefs in opposition to the general Americanization. These factors blended with a unique sense of humor (Herrera 2022, 23). When Kahlo was a young artist, she turned to the well-known Mexican painter Diego Rivera, who appreciated her skill and distinctive style as exceptional and distinctly Mexican (Herrera 2022, 23). He supported her artistic growth and soon had an intimate connection with Frida that, nevertheless, led to their divorce.
Additionally, to determine the meanings of the artworks, the author employed the technique of visual rhetoric interpretation and was influenced by contemporary movements (Taheri 2020). Frida supported the Mexicanidad ideology, a patriotic and passionate reaction to the Spanish colonizers’ denigration of indigenous Mexican heritage (Taheri 2020). As a result, she incorporates elements of popular culture, mythology, and traditional rites into many of her pieces. She consistently directs a powerful, excavator-like look onto the spectator in her self-portraits, breaking with the patriarchal practice of female objectification in painting.
Features and Themes of Frida Kahlo’s Art
Kahlo’s words show she believed her unique style was superior to realism, with surrealism serving as a crucial stop along the route, although even the most current criticisms of her artwork suggest that she did not employ surrealism because she never liberated herself from the truth. Without a doubt, Frida Kahlo’s artwork reflects surrealism’s desire to cross borders and dichotomy. Her paintings have been confined to a set of frozen, spatially constrained patterns due to the iconization and fetishization of her persona in popular culture (Piechura 2021, 23). They disregard the author’s involvement in psychoanalysis or surrealism (Piechura 2021, 23). It is additionally feasible to see her use of backdrop imagery as a surrealist tactic to separate the audience from the conscious world of logic by creating eternally vast and open landscapes that have no relation to daily life. Unquestionably, Kahlo had a keen understanding of leveraging the larger political and aesthetic context to advance her career (Piechura 2021, 24). However, the woman skillfully illustrated her perceptions, ideals, and pain that found relatability in others.
Critics have frequently portrayed Kahlo as a naive surrealist who was infectiously ignorant of how much her work mirrored the French avant-garde. Kahlo is currently linked to feminist ideology and liberation, and it is commonly recognized that her work was a sort of self-taught, autonomous phenomenon (Piechura 2021, 3). Nevertheless, more recent research aims to demonstrate how conflicted Kahlo was toward the gender-political climate of the time and how she successfully utilized some of her stereotypically feminine traits to build a media-attractive character domestically and abroad. This, in turn, could be seen as another example of her ideology and approaches. Kahlo’s methods, which combine magical realism and pre-Columbian symbolism, have lately come to the forefront of critical analyses of her career (Fatehi 2022, 4). This marks a departure from the more traditional, constrictive autobiographical understandings prevalent in European studies, which concentrated purely on Kahlo’s egomania, severe pain, numerous surgeries, and miscarriages.
The Wounded Table
There are numerous paintings, the meaning of which still reverberates in modern times. Among such pieces of art is the painting The Wounded Table, which was created in 1940. The Jesus-like suffering, Frida, is placed in the middle of the table. A towering, exaggerated Judas character, which appears to represent Diego’s treachery, may be seen on Frida’s right side (Fatehi 2022, 5). On the opposite side of the table are two children identified as Isolda and Antonio, the offspring of Cristina, Frida’s sibling (Fatehi 2022, 5). The Nayarit image, whose palm is intimately linked with Frida’s, implies that Frida is attached to Pre-Columbian heritage.
On the opposite side of the woman is a skeleton illustrated with all the wounds Frida had sustained in the decade preceding. These involve the surgically removed right foot, the inflamed genital area, and the gash in the center of the abdomen (Doeden 2020, 8). At the far end of the dinner table is Granzio, her beloved companion deer, who stands in for Simon the Zealot from The Last Supper and is both frequent and insignificant (Fatehi 2022, 6). The Wounded Table has several figurative signals around the primary symbol, Kahlo. As is customary, Kahlo’s presence serves as a syntagmatic connotation that derives its significance from the symbols encircling it.
The painting has several themes, and features that emphasize her cultural background and identity. The first theme is that of aging, and it implies the transition from a child to an adult woman who experiences pain. Moreover, Kahlo focuses on the ceremonial elements of Mexican culture while bleeding as a victim of Mexicanidad. The art of Frida Kahlo continues to address issues of Mexicanidad, nativeness, self-portraiture, bereavement, and sadness. This is the reason behind choosing to illustrate Nayarit and skeletons. The author also uses the color red, indicating Mexican culture’s passionate nature.
Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States
Another famous painting of Frida Kahlo is Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States, which was created in 1932. When painting Self Portrait Along the Boarder Line Between Mexico and the United States, the author illustrates the sun and moon over Mexico, which illustrates the desired location of the artist. Between 1930 and 1934, Kahlo and Rivera spent four years in the country. When her spouse flourished in the spotlight and achieved tremendous success in the creative community, Kahlo faced numerous challenges, notably miscarriages (Articoni 2019, 229). In her painting Self-Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and the United States, Frida Kahlo expresses her distaste for the industrialized, capitalist society of the U.S. in addition to her yearning for the rural life of Mexico (Knutson 2020, 25). An oversimplified image of Detroit, a city that she and River called home, can be seen on the right. It has large buildings and an industrial facility that spews smoke. A representation of Mexico is seen on the left, with vegetation, produce historical figures, a skull, and temple remains in the distance. Even though Kahlo was quite miserable at the time, she was capable of experimenting with several techniques and saw significant growth as an artist.
The given painting not only represents famous pieces of Mexico but emphasizes the presence of Mexicanidad. Exploring her realities and asserting her personality was central to Frida Kahlo’s intellectual and creative pursuits. Her sense of identity was entrenched in Mexico, thus, she yearned to return there. Kahlo saw herself in this work as existing on the dividing line between two universes. In this sense, the themes of this work are homesickness, industrialization, and Mexican heritage.
Conclusion
Hence, with works like The Wounded Table and Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States, Frida Kahlo expressed gratitude for her Mexican heritage while delving deeper in pursuit of her true self and inner serenity. As a patriotic and emotional response to the Spanish colonists’ disparagement of indigenous Mexican history, Frida endorsed the Mexicanidad concept. Her well-known pieces, Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States and The Wounded Table, are blatant examples of her philosophy and devotion. In the former art piece, Kahlo underlined the survival of Mexican culture and the decline of Western civilization by depicting Mexican flora, fauna, historical characters, a skull, and temple ruins. In the latter, Kahlo concentrates on the ceremonial aspects of Mexican culture. Therefore, much of the effort of Frida Kahlo was aimed at preserving her heritage.
References
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