Frida Kahlo Term Paper

Total Length: 744 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+

Page 1 of 2

Frida Kahlo: The life and work of a primitivist and an early postmodernist in the history of Mexican art and the history of female artists

Mexican artist. Primitivist. Consummate iconoclast. Lover of Diego Rivera and also a lesbian lover of women. A woman of a passionate, childish temperament who longed to have her own child but was systematically thwarted in her attempts. All of these descriptions sum up the works, loves, and lives of Frida Kahlo. ("Frida Kahlo: A Brief Biography," 2004) Yet this woman remained somewhat enigmatic to the rest of the world. As she herself noted in her brightly illustrated and copious diaries, she frequently painted self-portraits because she was so often alone and because she felt that she was the person she I knew best. (Falini, 2004, "Frida and her obsession of self-portraits.)

This obsessive isolation on the part of Kahlo, was partly self-imposed, because of what Kahlo viewed as her odd, even masculine appearance and her painful deformity, as the result of a freak bus accident and her early affliction with polio was a child. ("Frieda Kahlo: A Brief Biography," 2004) Her twisted bodily depiction of her own physical form is seen "as a sort of therapy to survive, an alienation of suffering and physical pain from herself, a kind of repression of the ravaging action inflicted by external events on her body, and also by modern medicine, as Frida was the frequent recipient of unsuccessful operations.
Also, she never had the child she desired to bear for Diego Rivera / (Falini, 2004)

Still, despite her introverted temperament, Kahlo remained vitally connected to the pulsating artistic life of her time, including the political and social involvements of Diego Rivera as well as her own quest to create a new form of contemporary Mexican art that fused future and past into one. Still, she saw her art as both national and personal. "They thought I was a Surrealist but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality," the artist stated, in other words she painted her inner reality with all of its hope, glory, and fury in a national context. One of her most stunning works can be found in the depiction of herself in "Portrait….....

Show More ⇣


     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


Related Essays

Frida Kahlos Spirit in Self-portrait with Monkey

Kevin Cliche Barrie, Ontario, Canada Introduction Self-Portrait with Money by Frida Kahlo was painted in 1938.  The work is an oil on masonite painting and was commissioned by Conger Goodyear, who served as the head of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (PBS, 2005).  Frida painted numerous self-portraits through her career, but this one depicted something unique about the artist:  the monkey perched just behind her shoulder represented a kind of protective spirit.  Frida herself has a look in her eyes that warns the viewer not to try to fool her—for she sees everything that everyone is… Continue Reading...

sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"Frida Kahlo" (2004, November 06) Retrieved July 1, 2025, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/frida-kahlo-57484

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"Frida Kahlo" 06 November 2004. Web.1 July. 2025. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/frida-kahlo-57484>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"Frida Kahlo", 06 November 2004, Accessed.1 July. 2025,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/frida-kahlo-57484