Hi guys and welcome back,
today’s post is dedicated to Frida Kahlo and her love story with Diego Rivera.
Today another post on the theme of love stories in art, but the protagonist is a woman. In fact, if there is one artist who changed the history of 20th century art all over the world, it is Frida Kahlo. An artist tied to the traditions and culture of her home country, Mexico. But who has made art his obsession. His passion and his life tell of his restless soul and his anxieties. Frida above all told the reality that surrounded her.
Let’s discover Frida Kahlo together!!
🎥 Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera ❤️ Love stories in art 🎨 🔝🔝
Watch the video on Youtube 🔝🔝
Frida Kahlo grows up in the shadow of the Mexican Revolution. She was a strong advocate for social justice. But also of the complex history and culture of his country. She tells people that she was born in 1910 instead of 1907, to be a daughter of the Revolution.
A feature of his works are references to colonial religious art. And also to Aztec sculpture. But these are always linked to the strong themes of nature and inner emotion.
In addition to being known for her personality, Frida’s face is known for portraits. He has been making them since the early years. Also because due to some unfortunate events she is forced to stay in bed and paint.
In 1914 , in fact, his parents and the family doctor think he contracted poliomyelitis but it is later discovered that he suffered from a deformation of the vertebrae which attacks and damages his right leg.
It is not the only tragedy in her life that changes her physically. While she is still a student in 1925 fact, she is the victim of a road accident on a bus which forces her to stay in bed for many years in a cast due to the numerous fractures.
So he decides to ask his family for brushes and canvases and a mirror and begins to represent herself and the world around her with an attention to detail and emotional tension that are recognizable in all her works.
She is a woman who suffers physically but also internally and therefore begins to explore her emotional states and to question important themes such as those of the power of relationships and gender issues.
The most important of the relationships that he lives throughout his life is certainly the one with Diego Rivera. She meets him for the first time when she is still a student and he is an accomplished artist, 20 years older than her. From 1928 the two begin to take an interest in each other. Diego is fascinated by Frida’s work and by her strong personality and the two thus begin their love story, until they marry in 1929.
Diego helps Frida to enter the circle of Mexican artists of those years, who are also active within of the Communist Party of Mexico. One of the first portraits made by Frida of the couple is from a couple of years after the wedding and is titled: Frida and Diego Rivera. Both are standing, but he is the only one holding the brushes. She stands next to him and holds his hand.
Frida in fact in those years accompanies and supports him on every business trip. The most famous of which is the one in the United States. Rivera is commissioned to paint one of the walls of the Rockefeller Center in New York for the ’33 Chicago Expo.
Despite this mutual support, however, the story of Frida and Diego is by no means simple. He cheats on her numerous times with other women and she suffers not only from love but also from illness and several miscarriages.
The two even lived for a period in two separate houses but connected by a bridge in such a way as not to influence each other’s artistic activity. This obviously pushes them away until they divorce in 1939 due to Diego’s betrayal with Frida’s sister Cristina.
The same year in which the separation takes place, Frida paints my favorite work: The two Fridas.
The painting tells of the sense of dualism in Frida’s soul. On the one hand, the thrust towards the West, represented on the left as a Frida dressed in white and on the other, opposite, Mexico on the right as a Frida wearing a typical traditional Mexican dress.
The two figures are divided and united at the same time: they are joined by crossed hands and an artery that starts and reaches Frida’s two hearts. The left heart, the Western is open, cut in half and we can see the inside. She is bleeding and dirty her white dress red because one of the veins that cross it has been cut by a pair of scissors, by Frida herself. The symbolic reference may be linked to the Catholic representation of the image of the Sacred Heart of Mary, very common in Mexico in those years.
The right heart is intact, and connected through another artery to an object that Frida is holding between her fingers. It appears to be a locket with the image perhaps a photograph of her love Diego Rivera, with whom she had married ten years earlier and from whom she had just divorced.
Frida and Diego’s love was made up of ups and downs and he wasn’t the only one who had stories parallel to marriage or during periods of separation. In fact, Frida also seems to have had relationships both with other men such as the Russian politician Lev Trotsky and with other women.
However, Rivera remains his greatest love and it seems to be like this for Diego too, so much so that a year after the divorce in 1940 the two rest and remain together until Frida’s death.
Another of the works that tells of this love story in those years is certainly Diego in my mind. A self-portrait of Frida who represents herself with her husband’s face on her forehead to make it clear how her thoughts are always linked to him. But in my opinion also how he is part of her despite everything. In fact, in her diary Frida more than once declared that she was mainly concerned with Diego’s happiness despite the suffering of betrayals.
Frida’s story and her works are very fascinating to me and she has certainly become a symbol offemale emancipation not only as an artist but also as a woman in Mexican and Western culture. By now its representation is everywhere and the message it brings with it comes in my opinion loud and clear to all of us.
Her love story with Diego Rivera is one of the most important chapters of her life and one of the ways to read her works but obviously it’s not the only one. However, it remains an art history that I like very much.
I love Frida very much and I rediscovered her thanks to some exhibitions I’ve visited and certainly also thanks to the film that tells her story. I told you about it in my video about 5 Movies for Art Lovers. And what do you think of Frida and her relationship with Rivera? Is she the woman artist who has upset and continues to upset art for you too? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks and see you next time!!
