I have not fully completed my research, but my original image of Frida has already changed considerably, as I read more and more about her life, what friends have said about her, what she said about herself and her life, her psychologist evaluation, etc...
I suppose I started like everybody with an idealized "Santa Frida de Los Dolores" image of a strong original woman way ahead of her times, that physically suffered greatly from her injuries, and mentally suffered greatly from her skewed relationship with Diego Rivera, but triumphed over adversity and exorcised her suffering through painting.
The image that is emerging is quite different. She seems to have been very insecure since childhood, feeling ugly and dumb, and spent most of her life begging for love and attention, actually "milking" her disabilities to get compassion, care, and love.
She was starved for love as a child: a failed "replacement child" (for her dead brother) to her cold hearted mother, and "sort of" a "favorite daughter" to a rather strange, sick, distant and recluse father. She had a mild case of polio (?) in childhood that left her with a withered and shorter leg that was a lifelong source of "shame", and made her feel inferior and physically damaged. But that taught her early that sickness was a way to get attention and love. The only unconditional love in her life was that of her younger sister Christina, except for the period of her affair with Riveira. She was Frida's "caretaker" most of her life.
She actually wasn't extremely smart academically. She went to the Prepa , but that was in large part because she had a lesbian relationship with her gym teacher Sara Zenil at her previous school(which horrified her mother), and the Prepa was mostly a boy school. She did not work very seriously there, and admitted she never bothered to learn anything. Instead, she ran around with the "bad" boys(Los Cachucas), and went after the smartest one(Alejandro Gomez Arias), acting liberated and literally begging him for love(see her childish letters to him in Hayden Herrera's Biography). He really never took her seriously, but played along for a while(free sex in Mexico in the 20's wasn't so easy to come by I suppose)… He disappeared after the accident.
She then went after Diego Rivera, the most famous man in her world, whom she met through her friend Tina Modotti. The reasons for her choice are not clear, and will remain one of Kahlo's enigmas. Diego never behaved as a real husband, but he did bring some financial security both to her and her family, and took care of her medical bills. She kept on begging for his love and attention though his numerous affairs.
She was not an intellectual, and was a rather tepid communist, mostly because Diego was. She basked in his fame as much as possible, and through him, met a lot of famous people whom she impressed with her sexy exotic look. She didn't really like most of them. She didn't really consider herself a serious painter.
Because of her insecurities, to hide her "deformities", because of Diego's taste for popular "Mexican "culture, and probably just as a way to be noticed, she started wearing the Tihuana outfits that became her "exotic" trademark, and decking herself up with jewelry and flowers. She worked very hard every morning putting on a face, braiding her hair and dressing up, even when she was confined to bed, to transform her insecure self into her flamboyant image:
It became more or less a ritual. Significantly, she called herself "la Gran Ocultadora"(the Great Concealer).
Like most Artists, and even more so because of her insecurities and dependency on others for her self esteem, she was subject to chronic bouts of depression through all of her adult life, some severe. There was very little in terms of medication at the time, and alcohol was the most readily available way to drown the pain, physical and psychological…
She remained rather childish in some ways, and loved to play games. Toward the end of her life, she loved playing with dolls, playing theatre, or playing merchant, probably to escape pain and reality.
BUT despite all these problems, she produced 143 paintings, 55 of them self portraits, many of them quite extraordinary, of great originality, and unlike anything ever painted before. She gave many of them away to friends, and money was not a motivation, so it is admirable that she had the will to keep on painting despite the sickness and the pain. Actually, she probably painted BECAUSE of the sickness and the pain, to keep the physical pain at bay, and to exorcise the mental anguish. I know for a fact from personal experience that total mental concentration(on painting, writing, whatever) is a very effective "painkiller".
I suppose I started like everybody with an idealized "Santa Frida de Los Dolores" image of a strong original woman way ahead of her times, that physically suffered greatly from her injuries, and mentally suffered greatly from her skewed relationship with Diego Rivera, but triumphed over adversity and exorcised her suffering through painting.
The image that is emerging is quite different. She seems to have been very insecure since childhood, feeling ugly and dumb, and spent most of her life begging for love and attention, actually "milking" her disabilities to get compassion, care, and love.
She was starved for love as a child: a failed "replacement child" (for her dead brother) to her cold hearted mother, and "sort of" a "favorite daughter" to a rather strange, sick, distant and recluse father. She had a mild case of polio (?) in childhood that left her with a withered and shorter leg that was a lifelong source of "shame", and made her feel inferior and physically damaged. But that taught her early that sickness was a way to get attention and love. The only unconditional love in her life was that of her younger sister Christina, except for the period of her affair with Riveira. She was Frida's "caretaker" most of her life.
She actually wasn't extremely smart academically. She went to the Prepa , but that was in large part because she had a lesbian relationship with her gym teacher Sara Zenil at her previous school(which horrified her mother), and the Prepa was mostly a boy school. She did not work very seriously there, and admitted she never bothered to learn anything. Instead, she ran around with the "bad" boys(Los Cachucas), and went after the smartest one(Alejandro Gomez Arias), acting liberated and literally begging him for love(see her childish letters to him in Hayden Herrera's Biography). He really never took her seriously, but played along for a while(free sex in Mexico in the 20's wasn't so easy to come by I suppose)… He disappeared after the accident.
She then went after Diego Rivera, the most famous man in her world, whom she met through her friend Tina Modotti. The reasons for her choice are not clear, and will remain one of Kahlo's enigmas. Diego never behaved as a real husband, but he did bring some financial security both to her and her family, and took care of her medical bills. She kept on begging for his love and attention though his numerous affairs.
She was not an intellectual, and was a rather tepid communist, mostly because Diego was. She basked in his fame as much as possible, and through him, met a lot of famous people whom she impressed with her sexy exotic look. She didn't really like most of them. She didn't really consider herself a serious painter.
Because of her insecurities, to hide her "deformities", because of Diego's taste for popular "Mexican "culture, and probably just as a way to be noticed, she started wearing the Tihuana outfits that became her "exotic" trademark, and decking herself up with jewelry and flowers. She worked very hard every morning putting on a face, braiding her hair and dressing up, even when she was confined to bed, to transform her insecure self into her flamboyant image:
Like most Artists, and even more so because of her insecurities and dependency on others for her self esteem, she was subject to chronic bouts of depression through all of her adult life, some severe. There was very little in terms of medication at the time, and alcohol was the most readily available way to drown the pain, physical and psychological…
She remained rather childish in some ways, and loved to play games. Toward the end of her life, she loved playing with dolls, playing theatre, or playing merchant, probably to escape pain and reality.
BUT despite all these problems, she produced 143 paintings, 55 of them self portraits, many of them quite extraordinary, of great originality, and unlike anything ever painted before. She gave many of them away to friends, and money was not a motivation, so it is admirable that she had the will to keep on painting despite the sickness and the pain. Actually, she probably painted BECAUSE of the sickness and the pain, to keep the physical pain at bay, and to exorcise the mental anguish. I know for a fact from personal experience that total mental concentration(on painting, writing, whatever) is a very effective "painkiller".
No comments:
Post a Comment