Summary: Frida Kahlo is near her death, a few months after the opening of another exhbition. In the Spring of 1953 they had just performed a bone transplant, unfortunately the bone was diseased and they had to remove it again. Therefore, Lola Alvarez Bravo along with Diego decided to do Frida one last show to honor her paintings while she was still alive. The doctors though it was actually a good idea, it could not get Frida any worst than she already was. In fact it should boost up her health as she got happy in thinking and planning her show. During the opening of the exhibit Lola Alvarez Bravo called Frida a "great woman and artist", she had long deserved this honor.
By the night time, Frida's conditon worsen, and the doctors forbade her to move. Frida was at her exhibition in a hospital stretcher. Everyone was so shocked they abandoned their cameras on the floor and were incapable of taking any pictures. Someone eventually did take a photograph of such an important moment of Frida's life. It is certainly true that Frida's presence made the show a display of emotion rather than an artistic celebration.
By August of 1953, the doctors decided they had to amputate Frida's right leg. Diego knew this operation was going to kill her. The day of her surgery everyone had grieving faces but Frida. She dressed in a Tehuana dress as if it were for a party. However, after everyone left Frida's side, she lost all hope. Even when she was furious, she no longer protested, it was all silent. She was not even interested in Diego who was her life. The loss of her leg lowered her self-esteem, and she even tried to commit suicide. In 1954 she drove herself to the studio one last time, she painted life by light, but her last works remained personal because they could not serve as political drawing, but more like personal and self-identifying. Frida died July 13, 1954, she was dressed in a Tehuana skirt, braided hair, earrings, and every finger on her hand had a ring.
Quote: "Hunger takes what it can get; greed takes what it wants, here and there, for its own pleasure" (Herrera 423).
During Frida's sickness her feelings for Diego began to change from hour to hour, from minute to minute. Therefore, when it came to discussing her marriage, she always described it as a marriage where they joined hunger with the desire to eat. Meaning Diego eas greedy and she was hungry. Her emotions had a lot to do with her increased dependence on drugs.
Reaction: Throughout the entire story I come to know that Frida and Diego cheat on each other all along in their marriage. However, Diego's infidelity did not bother Frida she was a vibrant woman and she just had a way of protesting everything. Frida did not seem to care whether Diego cheated or not because she was doing the same thing. Then, when Frida became badly sick, Diego's ways began to affect her, when she needed him most he was out and about with other females. Which makes me question whether Diego ever loved Frida or if their marriage was more on a career friendly bonding. Also, Diego married another woman after Frida died, which also made me question if he wanted a rebound to forget about Frida or that was just him being the woman lover that he is. Over all, from the reading I realize that Frida not only physically changed with time but her mentally and way of life changed as well. Her drawings also changed as time passed, her drawings showed everything that happened in her life, and one can see how her drawings vary from politics to personal art. Frida died years back, but her legacy still lives on along with Diego Rivera for being two famous artists.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
A Biography of Frida Kahlo (303-403)
Summary: By the 1940's Frida's career arose, the recognition of her art brought patrons, commissions, a teaching job, conferences, fellowship, participation in cultural organizations, conferences, art projects, and an invitation to write for periodicals. A sign of her growing reputation was her 1942 selection of drawings. These paintings demonstrated the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana, which is an organization under an education. In 1944, she was invited by the Ministry Education to be part of a popular mural painting. Frida was chosen as one of six artists to receive a government fellowship in 1946. Then her greatest honor came in September of the next year, at the National Exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts. Frida won five thousand pesos for each of four paintings.
Even though in the 1940's Frida had the best time with her career, earning a living was not easy. In 1947, Frida sold art for four thousand pesos, showing she was in need of money. For some reason, it seemed like portraits of other people were almost less vibrant and original than her subject paintings and self-portraits. It was inferred that perhaps Frida did not feel free to project all her fantasies into the portraits of other people, and it didn't make her feel her own reality in the drawing. By the time Frida began to rise Diego had been an ancient myth, while Frida was knew to mythic stature. Years after Diego and Frida died, Friends remembered them as sacred monsters. They had divorced and re-married. After, they re-married, the bond between them deepened. However, they both still had love affairs, his where open, and hers were with men. Frida's portraits recorded the battles of her marriage.
Quote:"No one is more than a functioning or part of the total function..." (Herrera 328).
The above quote is from Frida's diary. Frida thinks that life always sprouts from the trunk of age. In her drawings she tries to express her views of the universe. She expresses it with harmony and color, meaning that everything moves according to one law which is life. Therefore, where she writes no one is more than a functioning or part of the total function; she means all is all and one. For example, anguish and pain, pleasure and death are all processes to exist. She says all humans are sometimes described by one adjective but in reality we are hate, love, mother, child, plant, earth, lightning, etc. from the minute we are born.
Reaction: When I first read the quote I was confused. I thought it meant that humans are not complete that only part of us fully functions, but then as I read more, I realized Frida meant everything about us makes us from the minute we are brought to life including the environment itself. Also, her beliefs of life and the universe are portrayed in her drawing. For example, her drawing of Doña Rosita has darkness in between leaves to show night time, to mean end of life. Other signals of old age and death are brown leaves, gray leafless sticks. She shows death as part of the cycle of life by making the sticks form props of a tangle of live green flower plants. Then Doña Rosita herself is prickly looking to show her wisdom and long life.
Does it take artists a long time to decide how their drawing will symbolize something?
Even though in the 1940's Frida had the best time with her career, earning a living was not easy. In 1947, Frida sold art for four thousand pesos, showing she was in need of money. For some reason, it seemed like portraits of other people were almost less vibrant and original than her subject paintings and self-portraits. It was inferred that perhaps Frida did not feel free to project all her fantasies into the portraits of other people, and it didn't make her feel her own reality in the drawing. By the time Frida began to rise Diego had been an ancient myth, while Frida was knew to mythic stature. Years after Diego and Frida died, Friends remembered them as sacred monsters. They had divorced and re-married. After, they re-married, the bond between them deepened. However, they both still had love affairs, his where open, and hers were with men. Frida's portraits recorded the battles of her marriage.
Quote:"No one is more than a functioning or part of the total function..." (Herrera 328).
The above quote is from Frida's diary. Frida thinks that life always sprouts from the trunk of age. In her drawings she tries to express her views of the universe. She expresses it with harmony and color, meaning that everything moves according to one law which is life. Therefore, where she writes no one is more than a functioning or part of the total function; she means all is all and one. For example, anguish and pain, pleasure and death are all processes to exist. She says all humans are sometimes described by one adjective but in reality we are hate, love, mother, child, plant, earth, lightning, etc. from the minute we are born.
Reaction: When I first read the quote I was confused. I thought it meant that humans are not complete that only part of us fully functions, but then as I read more, I realized Frida meant everything about us makes us from the minute we are brought to life including the environment itself. Also, her beliefs of life and the universe are portrayed in her drawing. For example, her drawing of Doña Rosita has darkness in between leaves to show night time, to mean end of life. Other signals of old age and death are brown leaves, gray leafless sticks. She shows death as part of the cycle of life by making the sticks form props of a tangle of live green flower plants. Then Doña Rosita herself is prickly looking to show her wisdom and long life.
Does it take artists a long time to decide how their drawing will symbolize something?
Thursday, October 14, 2010
A Biography of Frida Kahlo (202-302)
Summary: There is a new event happening in the Rivera's home; the arrival of Trotsky; the creator of the Russian army and the man who had made the October Revolution, the companion of Lenin. Rivera and Trotsky were obsessive workers, but with the little time they had for social life the Trotsky and the Rivera couple went on picnics and excursions. No matter how well Trotsky knew a person he kept his distance, but Diego and Frida were a couple who could visit him anytime no questions asked. Trotsky was a vigorous man interested in sex, he became very animated around women, his opportunities were few but his success may have been considerable. Trotsky's reputation as a revolutionary hero, and his manners attracted Frida. She hardly needed to do anythinh because her physical features at the age of 29 did enough. Soon she began having and affair with Trotsky, he would slip notes into books he "recommended" to her and they would meet on a house in Aguayo Street, Mexico.
The affair soon ended and it is inferred that Frida had ended it, because Trotsky wrote a letter to his wife on how she was his one and only. his faithful, one true love, and victim. Then again, he also wrote Frida a nine page letter telling her how much she meant to him. Frida thought the letter was beautiful, and event though she was tired of him, they began to have an affair again. However, not as passionate as before where the word love would pop up frequently in their conversations. The affair ended once again, and Frida resumed her passionate ways with Diego. She as well got back on track with her painting.
Early, in October Frida left to New York for one of her shows of her paintings. According to Frida, the exaggerates the happenings of the day. She said it was a sold out show, but really about half the paintings were sold. Concluding that during this time the Depression was going on, it was quite good. In her times of travel Frida wrote plenty of letters to keep her fellow friends informed. Her writings and drawings seemed to give Frida a sort of realism. A realism in the way she saw true reality from her perspective not as the world saw it.
Quote: "It was a plea the kind of plea that a young lover at the age of seventeen would make to somebody he loves, instead of a man in his sixties" (Herrera 212).
When I first read this sentence and noticed it said plea, I thought of plea bargain, the type that is most common in courts when someone is convicted and they choose to plea bargain to get a less penalty. Then I connected that to the situation and it kind of fits in, in the sense that he was pretty much begging her to take him back and not give him the penalty of not having her. As if trying to convince Frida, he does not deserve to be without her since he liked her so much. Also, I find it quite disturbing that she is only 29 and he is 60 he could be her father. This quote also brought me back to thinking about Diego's infidelity with Frida, it seems like Diego and Frida had a childish kind of love, they kept cheating on each other. Maybe that was what made them some compatible for each other, but to me it is sort of awkward.
Reaction: My reaction to the above quote is that I find this quote to be quite contradictory as I made a text to world connection, in our era adults seem to say that teenagers do not fall in love that it is just infatuation. What Frida and Trotsky had was infatuation, in fact while I was reading that is what it says. Therefore, I have a question as to, Why does the author refer to it as a love story when it was not love? Also, Why does the author mention teenage love when others say there is not a teenage love? Also, as I looked through the pictures and drawings I already knew most of them portrayed Frida's life, and one is about Frida and Diego divorcing. Does this mean he found out about Frida's infidelities or the she just could not take that "panzon" anymore? Frida's life seems to be quite surreal, and I will have to keep reading more to understand her ways.
The affair soon ended and it is inferred that Frida had ended it, because Trotsky wrote a letter to his wife on how she was his one and only. his faithful, one true love, and victim. Then again, he also wrote Frida a nine page letter telling her how much she meant to him. Frida thought the letter was beautiful, and event though she was tired of him, they began to have an affair again. However, not as passionate as before where the word love would pop up frequently in their conversations. The affair ended once again, and Frida resumed her passionate ways with Diego. She as well got back on track with her painting.
Early, in October Frida left to New York for one of her shows of her paintings. According to Frida, the exaggerates the happenings of the day. She said it was a sold out show, but really about half the paintings were sold. Concluding that during this time the Depression was going on, it was quite good. In her times of travel Frida wrote plenty of letters to keep her fellow friends informed. Her writings and drawings seemed to give Frida a sort of realism. A realism in the way she saw true reality from her perspective not as the world saw it.
Quote: "It was a plea the kind of plea that a young lover at the age of seventeen would make to somebody he loves, instead of a man in his sixties" (Herrera 212).
When I first read this sentence and noticed it said plea, I thought of plea bargain, the type that is most common in courts when someone is convicted and they choose to plea bargain to get a less penalty. Then I connected that to the situation and it kind of fits in, in the sense that he was pretty much begging her to take him back and not give him the penalty of not having her. As if trying to convince Frida, he does not deserve to be without her since he liked her so much. Also, I find it quite disturbing that she is only 29 and he is 60 he could be her father. This quote also brought me back to thinking about Diego's infidelity with Frida, it seems like Diego and Frida had a childish kind of love, they kept cheating on each other. Maybe that was what made them some compatible for each other, but to me it is sort of awkward.
Reaction: My reaction to the above quote is that I find this quote to be quite contradictory as I made a text to world connection, in our era adults seem to say that teenagers do not fall in love that it is just infatuation. What Frida and Trotsky had was infatuation, in fact while I was reading that is what it says. Therefore, I have a question as to, Why does the author refer to it as a love story when it was not love? Also, Why does the author mention teenage love when others say there is not a teenage love? Also, as I looked through the pictures and drawings I already knew most of them portrayed Frida's life, and one is about Frida and Diego divorcing. Does this mean he found out about Frida's infidelities or the she just could not take that "panzon" anymore? Frida's life seems to be quite surreal, and I will have to keep reading more to understand her ways.
Friday, October 8, 2010
A Biography of Frida Kahlo (101-201)
Summary: The narrator begins to go into depths on Frida and Diego's marriage, from the observers point of view it was like a union of lions,their loves, battles, separations, and sufferings. To explain why their love would be described as wild relates to all the times Diego cheated on Frida, yet Frida said she could careless and was actually amused by his affairs. She had begun to be like a mother mother figure to Diego. Mostly Frida just wanted to be a supporting wife to Diego. At some point in their marriage, Diego has to go to New York for an opening of his art museum. Frida hated New York, she hated the high society and the "gringos" as she called the Americans. She thought they lacked sensibility and good taste. Even with her dislike of the people she liked all the industrial and mechanical development of the United States. In "Gringolandia", Frida was not introduced by her real name because it was German, and there had been a rise in Nazism. Therefore, Diego would introduce her as Carmen. Later on, Diego and Frida go to Detroit, the hotel in which they had been staying, there was a logo which read, "The best home address Detroit" (Herrera 134). They then find out it meant the hotel did not take in Jews. Diego decides to shout him and Frida are Jews, and that they will have to leave. However, due to their importance the hotel decides to lower the rent to $100 so that they would stay, and they try to say their sign did not really mean that.
During the time Frida spent in the U.S. she met plenty of wealthy people, including Henry Ford. She assisted to one of his parties, and she danced with him a couple of times. He was very pleased with Frida and when she was ready to leave a car awaited for her with a chauffeur, and he said it was all paid. However, Frida did not accept it and to her excuse she said it was because of her communist view. Ford did not take it offensively and instead the next day he gave her a cheaper car, a Ford in which she then accepted. This is what happened, but Frida tell it differently, she says Henry happened to have a party, and her lame self was there, and he asked Diego if he could offer Frida a present to which then she could accept. As time passed, Frida became pregnant with her first child, but due to her condition she was too weak to keep the child. She went to her doctor to abort and he gave her quinine, but apparently that did not help for she just bled and was still pregnant. The doctor told her to just keep the child, but Frida was afraid she would get much more sick, and that the baby would as well have problems. Also, she had no one to care for her because Diego was working all the time and her family was in Mexico, and a child came in fourth place as a priority. Either way she chose to keep and the child and soon, she was rushed to the emergency room as huge clots of blood were lost. She was in the hospital for thirteen days bleeding, and then she had a missed carriage. To express her feeling Frida decided to paint a self portrait with a swollen face from tears.
Quote: "I have a cat's luck" (Herrera 143).
This quote refers to the time when Frida had recently experienced a missed carriage. She states the above line in a letter to her Doctor. By having a cat's luck she means that plenty of things happen to her, but she does not die easily, like a cat which has nine lives. She begins to think that in the end there are thousands of things that always remain incomplete, and that she will just have to put up with them.
Reaction: My reaction to some of the reading I have done relates to Frida's insights and how anywhere she went she had some sort of way to act, she did not care where she was at she would swear and act like she knew the people. From the first time in which I chose the book, and began to read I thought about what is so interesting about Frida Kahlo that has made her so famous, she can just be any other painter. Then as I read more about her life she has gone through plenty of harsh moments. The author has the style to give an insight into something about Frida and then use Frida's own words on the event. Which gives a better understanding to her character, and how she was a strong humble woman.
During the time Frida spent in the U.S. she met plenty of wealthy people, including Henry Ford. She assisted to one of his parties, and she danced with him a couple of times. He was very pleased with Frida and when she was ready to leave a car awaited for her with a chauffeur, and he said it was all paid. However, Frida did not accept it and to her excuse she said it was because of her communist view. Ford did not take it offensively and instead the next day he gave her a cheaper car, a Ford in which she then accepted. This is what happened, but Frida tell it differently, she says Henry happened to have a party, and her lame self was there, and he asked Diego if he could offer Frida a present to which then she could accept. As time passed, Frida became pregnant with her first child, but due to her condition she was too weak to keep the child. She went to her doctor to abort and he gave her quinine, but apparently that did not help for she just bled and was still pregnant. The doctor told her to just keep the child, but Frida was afraid she would get much more sick, and that the baby would as well have problems. Also, she had no one to care for her because Diego was working all the time and her family was in Mexico, and a child came in fourth place as a priority. Either way she chose to keep and the child and soon, she was rushed to the emergency room as huge clots of blood were lost. She was in the hospital for thirteen days bleeding, and then she had a missed carriage. To express her feeling Frida decided to paint a self portrait with a swollen face from tears.
Quote: "I have a cat's luck" (Herrera 143).
This quote refers to the time when Frida had recently experienced a missed carriage. She states the above line in a letter to her Doctor. By having a cat's luck she means that plenty of things happen to her, but she does not die easily, like a cat which has nine lives. She begins to think that in the end there are thousands of things that always remain incomplete, and that she will just have to put up with them.
Reaction: My reaction to some of the reading I have done relates to Frida's insights and how anywhere she went she had some sort of way to act, she did not care where she was at she would swear and act like she knew the people. From the first time in which I chose the book, and began to read I thought about what is so interesting about Frida Kahlo that has made her so famous, she can just be any other painter. Then as I read more about her life she has gone through plenty of harsh moments. The author has the style to give an insight into something about Frida and then use Frida's own words on the event. Which gives a better understanding to her character, and how she was a strong humble woman.
Friday, October 1, 2010
A Biography of Frida Kahlo (3-100)
Summary: The novel A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera is evidently about Frida Kahlo, a female artist who was born in Mexico; July 6, 1907, but Frida actually decided to say her birthday was on July 7, 1910. The need to change her birthday came when the Mexican Revolution began in 1910, since she was a child experiencing all the bloodshed and commotion she decided her and the modern Mexico had been born together. Frida was the third daughter of Guillermo and Matilde Kahlo. Frida also had other sisters, they were Cristina, Matilde, Adriana, Maria, and Margarita. However, her father would always say she was his best daughter. They both shared a love for art, her father would find art in photography and sometimes bring Frida along with him to take pictures, while Frida found herself in paintings. The days in which she shared her father's interest it took a lot of time to develop, retouch, and color photographs, Frida was an impatient girl and would find the job quite conscientious. However, her father's techniques soon caught up to her in which her father's concern for minute surface detail began to show in her own paintings.
Frida tells her life through paintings, in each painting she would draw something that related to her real life. To actually go into detail, she drew some pictures of her mom, dad, and grandparents and the picture contained her mom on her wedding day with a fetus drawing next to it, which one can infer when Matilde married Guillermo she must of been pregnant with Frida. Also, from the moment Matilde had Frida she was unable to breast feed, therefore Frida had to be breast fed by a nurse and she drew a picture of that event as well. Throughout time Frida experienced the small pox disease which actually left one of her legs deformed, and she would be made fun of. Every time she was made fun of she would curse back at the kids, but still she did hear their commenting and they made her self conscious of how she looked. Which she would also show in her drawings, and once she became distant from people she began to have an imaginary friend whom she would draw a door to go through and meet up with her imaginary friend who was happy and always laughed.
Frida was definitely known to be a prankster, she dared to tease her father on his German ways. Once she helped her own sister to escape with her boyfriend to Veracruz.
Quote: "I paint myself because I am so often alone, Frida said, because I am the subject I know best"(Herrera 74).
Most of Frida's drawings are of herself, after the accident she experienced which left her invalid Frida began to see the world through a private view of her life. Whether she was painting fruits or flowers she drew it with the vision seen through herself. To Frida nothing seemed more normal than to paint, her paintings were a part of a self-creation, of her life. It was a theatrical presentation, as she recovered from her fatal accident she reinvented herself.
Reaction: The author Hayden Herrera begins writing about Frida's background and moves on to write more about Frida's personality, in which she quotes things that the painter herself has said, which interests me a lot because not only does she analyze Frida's life and just write about it, but she gives us examples of the things Frida said or how she acted which makes me feel a bit closer to the painter. Also, relating to the class topic on growing up, the author gives enough information of Frida's childhood and how she was Mexican, but her father was German and how she used to spell her name Freda with an e the German way until the Nazi's came in to place which is when she stopped. Also, something that keeps appearing is education, and Frida attended a fine school, and she was even more educated at her catechism class. It states "My childhood was marvelous because, although my father was a sick man (he had vertigos every month and a half), he was an immense example to me of tenderness, of work (photographer and also painter) and above all understading for all my problems"(Herrera 20). Frida had someone she could confide in and that built her road to an adult, she was never ashamed from her father in fact she learned from him and that takes her far in her career.
Frida tells her life through paintings, in each painting she would draw something that related to her real life. To actually go into detail, she drew some pictures of her mom, dad, and grandparents and the picture contained her mom on her wedding day with a fetus drawing next to it, which one can infer when Matilde married Guillermo she must of been pregnant with Frida. Also, from the moment Matilde had Frida she was unable to breast feed, therefore Frida had to be breast fed by a nurse and she drew a picture of that event as well. Throughout time Frida experienced the small pox disease which actually left one of her legs deformed, and she would be made fun of. Every time she was made fun of she would curse back at the kids, but still she did hear their commenting and they made her self conscious of how she looked. Which she would also show in her drawings, and once she became distant from people she began to have an imaginary friend whom she would draw a door to go through and meet up with her imaginary friend who was happy and always laughed.
Frida was definitely known to be a prankster, she dared to tease her father on his German ways. Once she helped her own sister to escape with her boyfriend to Veracruz.
Quote: "I paint myself because I am so often alone, Frida said, because I am the subject I know best"(Herrera 74).
Most of Frida's drawings are of herself, after the accident she experienced which left her invalid Frida began to see the world through a private view of her life. Whether she was painting fruits or flowers she drew it with the vision seen through herself. To Frida nothing seemed more normal than to paint, her paintings were a part of a self-creation, of her life. It was a theatrical presentation, as she recovered from her fatal accident she reinvented herself.
Reaction: The author Hayden Herrera begins writing about Frida's background and moves on to write more about Frida's personality, in which she quotes things that the painter herself has said, which interests me a lot because not only does she analyze Frida's life and just write about it, but she gives us examples of the things Frida said or how she acted which makes me feel a bit closer to the painter. Also, relating to the class topic on growing up, the author gives enough information of Frida's childhood and how she was Mexican, but her father was German and how she used to spell her name Freda with an e the German way until the Nazi's came in to place which is when she stopped. Also, something that keeps appearing is education, and Frida attended a fine school, and she was even more educated at her catechism class. It states "My childhood was marvelous because, although my father was a sick man (he had vertigos every month and a half), he was an immense example to me of tenderness, of work (photographer and also painter) and above all understading for all my problems"(Herrera 20). Frida had someone she could confide in and that built her road to an adult, she was never ashamed from her father in fact she learned from him and that takes her far in her career.
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