Text/Pan Caixia
"I've had two great disasters in my life, one was a car accident and the other was Diego." Legendary Mexican female painter Frida Caro said.
It was both a blessing and a misfortune to meet Diego Rivera, who led her to artistic maturity and brought her emotional pain.
Frida Carlo and Diego Rivera
He wrapped her life in it
In 1923, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Diego Rivera, the founder of the Mexican Mural Movement, came to the National Preparatory School to create murals.
In the hall of the lecture hall, Diego stood on scaffolding and concentrated on painting, his fat body constantly balancing.
Suddenly, a mischievous shout came from behind the pillar, and a young girl followed up, and Diego was startled.
The girl was 16-year-old Frida. She was born into a family of artists, and her father was a painter and photographer.
Although she suffered from polio at the age of 6 and her right leg atrophied, she was supported by her father, she was lively and confident, and her grades were very good, and when she was admitted to the National Preparatory School, she was one of only 35 girls out of 2,000 students.
When she learned that the master artist Diego had come to the school to paint the murals, she secretly ran to see them. Diego was fat and funny-looking, and Frida, who had always been bold, made a joke with him.
Frida Caro
She had an unusual look, solemn and confident, and there was a strange fire in her eyes. She was beautiful, but still a child. ”
Years later, Diego said in his autobiography, "I would never have dreamed that the voice hiding behind the pillar would become my wife." ”
When we met again, it was five years later. Standing on the high side of the scaffolding, Diego looked condescendingly at the girl in front of him.
"She is graceful and athletic, her face is handsome, her hair is very long, and her thick black eyebrows meet above her nose, like the wings of a crow, and like two black curved bows, lining the brown eyes beautifully."
He didn't recognize Frida, much less did he know that she had experienced extreme pain.
Five years for her, long and heavy.
At the age of 18, Frida suffered a fatal car accident on a tram. That day, a violent collision tore her clothes apart, and on the tram, someone carried a bag of gold powder, which instantly sprinkled her bloody body.
The spine was broken, the body was fractured in multiple places, and the steel handrail pierced Frida's pelvis. Her whole body was wrapped in a plaster cast, and she was fixed to a hospital bed.
Her first love boyfriend left her on the pretext of studying abroad. The pain of the cone was accompanied by Frida from then on, and in order to relieve the pain, she took up a pen and drew butterflies on the plaster cast.
Her father bought her a drawing board, her mother put a mirror for her, and in her loneliness, Frida began to paint herself.
She used the hospital bed as the cradle of her creation, and the year after the car accident, the first self-portrait was completed: a refined burgundy velvet costume, a slender neck white and graceful, in stark contrast to the cold and reserved expression on her face.
Frida self-portrait
With a love of beauty and a desire for life, Frida miraculously recovered.
In order to treat her illness, the family is in trouble, and she wants to make a living by painting, so she comes to Diego with her paintings, hoping to get his guidance.
With a small and thin body and melancholy but brutal eyes, 42-year-old Diego could not refuse.
He slowly climbed off the scaffolding and listened to Frida talk about encounters and dreams. In Frida's defiant gaze, the memory became clear, and he recognized her!
"If you really want to be a painter, you shouldn't care about other people's opinions." Diego told Frida.
He did not intend to teach her, but allowed her to leave her paintings.
A few days later, Diego was standing in front of Frida's house. Frida's self-portrait shocked him, believing that she was a natural artist.
Only one mountain can understand another mountain, and in the painting he sees pain and darkness, but also stubbornness and light, and he is moved.
Frida, on the other hand, later wrote in her diary:
"In a second or two that you appear before me, it is like wrapping my whole life and making me anxiously wait for the dawn."
Frida handwritten love letters
Diego began frequently inviting Frida to artist gatherings. In the eyes of everyone, the beautiful and hot Frida style is full of charm, which fascinates Diego deeply.
Attracted by each other's talents, they became more and more intimate and unconsciously fell in love.
He became her disaster
Despite her mother's objections, Frida married Diego in 1929. Although, he was 21 years older than her, although, he had divorced her twice.
At the wedding, Frida wore a green silk dress and a big red shawl, which was both maverick and poured out on sentient beings.
One burly and strong, one petite and weak, Frida jokingly called their union "elephant and pigeon".
Portrait of Frida and Diego
After the marriage, at Diego's suggestion, Frida wore a traditional Mexican long dress, wearing bright ornaments, and her heavy eyebrows, forming her own unique style.
Influenced by Diego, she also became a staunch communist, they participated in the Mexican People's Revolution together, and when they walked in the parade, she was his perfect foil and companion.
To outsiders, Diego is big and ugly, but Frida adores him.
In her diary, she wrote passionate love more than once: "I want to paint a portrait of you, but the love for you is too rich to be used, and I don't know what color to use." ”
"You teach, and I absorb." Your every word, through space into my star-like cells, my Diego, my light. ”
Diego's guidance allowed Frida to disguise the lack of painting experience very well.
Love and family became the subject, and in the self-portrait, her eyes were bright and happiness filled her face. She wanted to have children for him.
Diego directed Frida in painting
In 1931, Diego's exhibition in New York was so successful that he was invited to Detroit to create murals, with whom Frida went.
During that time, Frida completed the duo portrait Frida and Diego Rivera, with their hands prominently clasped together in the center of the picture.
Frida's painting style gradually matured, and more surprisingly, she became pregnant.
But the doctor's prediction was right, the car accident caused her to lose her fertility, and she miscarried.
Living in a foreign country again, Frida poured all her emotions into Henry Ford Hospital.
On the screen, she is lying on the bed, the sheets are full of blood, broken spine, broken pelvis, miscarried fetus, pain and helplessness are vivid.
Diego is also sad, and on the Detroit Industry mural, a cowered baby replaces the original design of the farm farmer.
The bad news came one after another, and Diego was in a difficult situation in the United States.
First, the Detroit murals were attacked by conservatives as a dangerous product for promoting communism, and later the murals in Rockefeller Center in New York were destroyed because they contained the image of Lenin.
Part of the large mural "Detroit Industry"
With regret and anger, they returned to Mexico.
Frida then experienced two more miscarriages, and in a letter to a doctor friend in San Francisco, she was filled with frustration:
"I really wanted to have a little Diego and cried a lot about it, but it was all over and I had no choice but to endure this reality."
More unfortunately, the relationship between the two has a rift, and Diego empathizes with each other.
Even so, Frida still said, "I can't love him because of his flaws." Until one day, she pushed open the door to find Diego with her sister.
In desperation, Frida cut off her long hair, which had been Diego's favorite.
All the pain, she poured into the canvas, in the painting "Less Pinch a Little", a woman lies on a white sheet, covered in scales and blood. Next to him, there stood a man with a dagger in his hand.
Diego, the "perpetrator", was called "disaster" by Frida.
Frida's painting "Pinch a Little Less"
Like a rebellious child, Frida began to indulge herself, drinking heavily, binge-partying, interacting with different people, and constantly getting bored.
Bumpy emotions and unfortunate life are all her creative content.
In her paintings, there are small animals, and the arms of the little monkeys are resting on her shoulders, like a child relying on its mother.
When critics call Frida a surrealist painter, she said: "I never paint dreams, only my own reality, and I believe this is the best work." ”
As Frida puts it, her work became increasingly influential, not only in New York and Paris, but also in Picasso's praise, but also in the collection of a self-portrait by the Louvre.
At the age of 32, she became the first Latin American painter to enter the Louvre.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > life burns out in the fire of love</h1>
Career reached its peak, but emotions fell to the bottom, and Diego filed for divorce.
Since then, the dark clouds have become the background, and Frida conveys the pain through painting.
In the painting "Two Fridas", she paints two of herself, one is deeply loved by Diego, and the other is abandoned by Diego, without Diego, she can only let the two hold hands.
Two Fridas
Although she expresses her strength in the painting, Frida's body and mind have been severely damaged.
In 1940, she had to go to San Francisco for medical treatment. At the time, Diego was there. After the breakup, he found out that losing Frida was just as painful for him.
Under the care of Diego and her doctor friend, Frida gradually improved.
When Diego sincerely says "the one who needs to be saved is me", she agrees to his request to remarry.
But at the same time, she put forward two conditions: one is the AA system; the other is to live in separate rooms.
"Being Diego's wife is the most incredible thing in the world, he won't be anyone's husband, but he will always be my great partner."
They were comrades, friends, soul mates, and this time the union was only about art.
Only in the diary, Frida's love remained warm: "Diego, above my lips; Diego, deep in my heart; in my madness, in my sleep..."
In 1944, after a failed spinal surgery, Frida's health deteriorated, and she wandered into the hospital, operating one after another.
Frida paints from a hospital bed
Lying on a hospital bed, dressed in a corset made of steel, leather, and plaster, she kept drawing.
In the painting, Diego is sometimes at the center of her eyebrows, sometimes on her forehead, and sometimes, they are each half together. She and Diego, you have me, I have you.
The same is true of Diego, in his famous work The Dream of War and the Ideal of Peace, Frida walks in a wheelchair at the forefront of the crowd.
Artistically, they feel sorry for each other.
In 1953, Frida's condition took a sharp turn for the worse and she had to amputate her right leg.
Her life was about to pass, but she still had a wish. Curated by Diego, Frida's first exhibition in Mexico finally opened.
Despite the doctor's persuasion, Frida was carried into the hall along with the bed on which she was lying.
Stills from the movie Frida
On that day, she wore Diego's favorite Mexican national costume and drank and sang happily. She also heard again what Diego had to say about her:
"I want to comment on her from the perspective of an artist, not from the perspective of my husband, and I admire her.
Her work is ironic and soft, as hard as steel, as free as butterfly wings, as moving as a smile, but also as cruel as the suffering of life.
She is a true artist. ”
From Diego's proud voice, Frida heard love again.
In her last days, Diego stayed with her, and on July 13, 1954, her life burned out in the fire of love.
In her diary, she left a sentence: "I hope that leaving is happiness, and I wish to never return." ”
On the day of the funeral, Diego "looked like a soul cut in half," which he later said was "the saddest moment of his life."
Three years later, he followed, leaving only immortal paintings and telling their legends.
Legendary female painter Frida