“Two Fridas” by Frida Kahlo. 1939.
One of the most easily recognizable Mexican women of the twentieth century – Frida Kahlo, whose life was full of suffering and problems managed to find an escape in her paintings (Friis 53). She predominantly pictured herself in her works, for she said it is the subject she knows best.
She never smiled in her paintings. Her face looks practically the same; serious, even sorrowful with bushy eyebrows grown together, faint tendrils over tight lips. It is the scenery and the objects around that change and add story to the images. Objects were recovered from the usual environment and included in new combinations. Artist’s ideas are encrypted in details, background and figures that appear next to the image of the author in the paintings. Kahlo’s symbols are based on national traditions and are closely linked to the Indian mythology of pre-Hispanic period. Frida never tended toward realism. For her it was much more important to transmit the emotional state rather than the accuracy of the situation. She portrayed reality not as she saw it but as she felt it.
Her work “Two Fridas” is no different from her traditional style of Mexican surrealism. We see a grand canvas (173,5x173,5 cm) with two women sitting near each other on a bench, holding hands and eventually exchanging hearts and cultures (Helland 402). This time both figures are Frida. However, one is dressed in native Indian clothes; the other is in a festive white dress, presumably European-oriented. What is striking from the first look at the image is that both women have their hearts shown. They look like cutouts on their bodies. An artery that goes from one heart to another is the only thing that unites them and probably the only thing that keeps them (her) going. This may mean that these two sides of Frida, so different, are co-dependent. While the traditionally dressed Frida has the heart as an appliqué on her dress, the other one has it shown open, there is also blood dripping on her white clothes from a vein she is holding with a medical instrument. The seriousness and tranquility of women’s faces make the scene even more absurd. The dark heavy clouds on the background accentuate the strange tragedy of the image. Everything looks very surreal but at the same time very calm, as if Frida came to peace with the situation.
This is the period in her life when she divorced her husband and love of her life, Diego Riviera, and her inner sufferings are shown through the image. The double self-portrait shows a simple Mexican Frida that was once loved by her husband, and the other – more styled up Frida that was betrayed and pushed away. She dreamed of life where she could be a beautiful bride, a mother and have a nice family, but the obstacles that pierced her life, never allowed her to achieve that. In this image, everything she could have of a family has ended. Despite her aching heart, inside she has a stronger core that is holding the flow of dripping blood. Despite the raging clouds inside of her, she has made peace with it as much as she could. Despite her pain that is obvious and showing in stains of blood, she is managing it as she did through all her life.
Although the theme of the painting is sadness and heart breaking, the colors and the overall mood of the image is not gloomy. Indian inspired clothes of blue and yellow and olive - earthly colors, which probably indicates Fridas’ connection to her land (Bán 30). The white dress looks very pure, very bleach-white, artificial even – the role she is forced to play. The hearts and the arteries are of a bright red color, which despite the unattractiveness of the scene make the perception of the image more positive. The left Frida is brought a little more to the forefront, because of her shining brightness; this could mean that this is the dominant Frida in her life right now. The absence of other objects in the picture and the fact that two women are sitting on a bench in the middle of nowhere, accentuates the emptiness that the artist may feel. Although two Fridas are sitting still in the image, the voluminous clouds in the back add a sense of movement; maybe a raging storm that is happening in Frida’s life while is sitting still trying to close her wounds.
Works Cited
Helland, Janice. Culture, Politics, and Identity in the Paintings of Frida Kahlo. (1991). Web.
Friis, Ronald J. "the Fury and the Mire of Human Veins": Frida Kahlo and Rosario
Castellanos”.Hispania 87.1 (2004): 53–61. Web
Bán, Zsófia, and Jim Tucker. “The Two Fridas”.World Literature Today 83.5 (2009): 30–33.
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