Introduction
Frida Kahlo painted The Broken Column in 1944. It is an oil painting on masonite, 13 inches wide, and 17 inches high, displayed in Museo Dolores Olmedo Patino in Mexico City. The picture is a self-portrait of a woman in considerable physical and mental pain, but in no way is it a self-pitying one.
Formal analysis
The primary subject of this painting is Frida herself, with her flesh cleaved open, exposing a crumbling Ionic column of her spine. The gentle and delicate lines of her body are juxtaposed to the unceremonious and broken edges of the wound, and the manufactured curves of her medical brace, which appears to be holding her torn body together. The straight lines of the column are interrupted by cracks, creating a sense of fragility and precipitous balance. The colors used in the painting are also a juxtaposition: the warm tones of Frida’s body are contrasting with the sickly and pale hues of the desert behind her. The white of the cloth is much warmer than the white of the brace as well.
The shapes of Frida’s body and the desert are very organic and asymmetrical, while the brace and the nails are jutting and full of angles, symbolizing pinpricks of pain and a cage that Frida was often confined to due to her illness. The value is the darkest inside Frida’s body and the cracks in the column, which might symbolize emptiness and depression. The darkness creates negative space between the column and her flesh, with an emphasis on what is her core and the source of her structural integrity, the painting’s focal point. It is interrupted and framed by the brace, solidifying the impression of her falling apart and being barely held together. The other dark elements of the painting are the fissures in the ground behind her, which symbolize her life and environment, no less tragic and damaged than her insides.
The symmetrical shape of the brace is balanced, but that balance seems unnatural in contrast with the feminine body, the flowing fabric, and the uneven landscape. The rhythm of the painting is downward-upward: the ragged wound and the sad face demand our attention first and foremost, and then our gaze descends along the column, aided by the horizontal parts of the brace, like a ladder. As we reach the bottom of the torso, we follow a series of nails going down Frida’s leg. After that discovery, we notice the pattern of nails across her body as we move back up, and then, when we reach her face again, we see the tears and the paradoxically calm unwavering stare directed right at us. The wavy hair, thick eyebrows, and bare breasts barely register, in comparison with the striking depiction of Kahlo’s trauma, but they serve to create some balance and natural symmetry in the central figure when the picture is viewed holistically.
Biographical Analysis
During most of her life, Frida Kahlo had to deal with illness and trauma. She was born with spina bifida, a congenital disability that is very likely to have caused many problems later in life, such as the disfigured foot and reduced sensitivity and reduced mobility later in life (Budrys 5). When she was a child, she contracted polio, which has led to muscle atrophy and underdevelopment of her right leg. It is speculated that her chronic pain and fatigue might have been a result of post-polio syndrome (Courtney et al. 91), which, in conjunction with her later trauma, produced terrible pain that would impact her art and mental state. In her late teens, Kahlo suffered a traffic accident that destroyed her body and confined her to bed for many months. She was not expected to survive, as the number of broken bones, the pierced pelvis, peritonitis, and cystitis were unmanageable by contemporary medicine (Courtney et al. 92). She, however, made a seemingly full recovery, but the chronic pain and fatigue led her back to a hospital a year after the accident. Her vertebrae were discovered to have been displaced, and she had to wear corsets and braces (Burdys 7). Years later, that same fate would befall her again, rendering her unable to teach art at a school, and confining her to a metal corset, which was depicted in The Broken Column (Kettenmann and Kahlo 67).
The compound effect of her conditions created chronic pains, especially in her broken back and underdeveloped right leg. They would often be the subject of her paintings, especially later in life. It is theorized that her art was a form of therapy to distance herself from her pain and process the depression and suffering she often felt, as well as a manifestation of a dissociative personality disorder (Courtney et al. 95). The Broken Column is a brilliant and horrifying example of such therapeutic art, in which she depicted precisely the way she felt.
Conclusion
Frida Kahlo insisted that she never painted dreams, but her own reality. It is difficult to dispute that, knowing the incredible trauma she had to live through. The Broken Column is a self-portrait that shows not only what Kahlo looked like, but also the physical suffering and mental anguish that Kahlo felt. Despite it, her gaze is steady, and she refuses to pity herself. This painting is a testament to her strength, will, and fortitude, and though damaged, her column stays upright.
References
- Budrys, Valmantas. “Neurological Deficits in the Life and Works of Frida Kahlo.” European Neurology, vol. 55, no. 1, 2006, pp. 4–10.
- Courtney, Carol A., et al. “Frida Kahlo: Portrait of Chronic Pain.” Physical Therapy, vol. 97, no. 1, 2016, pp. 90–96.
- Kettenmann, Andrea, and Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo, 1907-1954: Pain and Passion. Taschen, 2000.