The Mexican painter Frida left more than 150 self-portraits to posterity: the iconic one-line eyebrows, the short hair on the lips, the resolute eyes, the cold expression, plus the Mexican-style dress, gorgeous large gems, her self-portrait is highly recognizable.
Her self-portrait was acquired at the Louvre and was the first latin American painter to enter the Louvre. Her head is printed on Mexican banknotes, and she is a cultural symbol of Mexico.
She has too many labels on her: painter, politician, social activist, patriot, surrealist, bisexual, feminist... She was a contradiction, a victim, a genius painter.
Frida painting
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="41" > Frida's multiculturality</h1>
Frida's father was a German immigrant Jew and an excellent photographer and painter. Frida's mother was of Spanish and American Indian descent and was from Mexico.
Frida is a mixed-race child who has been mixed with multicultural genes since birth.
Frida suffered from polio when she was 6 years old, which resulted in one leg thick and one leg thin, and in order to cover up her defect, she had to wear several pairs of socks on the thin leg.
This is one of the reasons why Frida often wears a long skirt.
Frida is the third daughter in the family, not only beautiful but also lively and agile. Her father also liked her very much, sending her to the best national preparatory school in Mexico to study. The school has 3,000 boys and 35 girls, and Frida is one of the 35 girls.
Fate did not open the way for this girl who suffered from illness at a young age.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="128" > tragic car accident: the first fatal blow</h1>
At the age of 18, Frida suffered a tragic car accident that changed the course of Frida's life.
The car accident caused Frida's spine to break into three pieces, her cervical vertebrae to fragment, and one foot to be crushed. A metal armrest runs through the woman's intimate parts from the abdomen, causing Frida to lose her fertility...
His boyfriend described the scene: "The violent collision tore her clothes off. Someone in the car was carrying a bag of gold powder... The gold powder sprinkled all over her bloody body. ”
She lay in a coffin-like box for a whole month, and no one believed she would survive, but she miraculously survived.
But the aftermath of the car accident left her, her whole life was accompanied by physical pain, and since then she has undergone 32 surgeries, large and small, and even had to amputate her right leg and wear a special corset to sit still.
In order to fight the pain, Frida had to rely on alcohol, narcotics and smoking for the rest of her life; although she did not believe that she had lost her fertility, the nails in her body caused her to have three miscarriages after three pregnancies after marriage.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="130" > Frida who began painting</h1>
Lying in her hospital bed, Frida began to paint to pass the time.
Her first self-portrait was of her first love, her boyfriend, who eventually immigrated with his family and left Frida.
At this time, Frida's demeanor was serious and cold, and her posture was feminine and gentle.
Frida, who had picked up a life, began to think about the future of a livelihood to rely on.
Frida took her painting to vera, a famous muralist in Mexico, and Rivera worked on a mural project at Frida's school. Rivera thought Frida was talented and supported her in painting, and Frida followed Rivera to learn to paint.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="145" > marriage: another fatal blow</h1>
The association with Rivera, for Frida, was another part of her life.
Fortunately and unfortunately, see what Frida herself said:
I have experienced two unexpected fatal blows in my life, one in a car accident and one in Rivera.
Rivera divorced her second wife and fell in love with Frida.
Rivera is 20 years older than Frida, Rivera is 42 years old and fat, and Frida is only 20 years old and was born petite. Their marriage was dubbed the "marriage of an elephant and a pigeon"
Rivera and Frida
Rivera's mother disagrees with their marriage, but Frida falls madly in love with Rivera.
Rivera said to Frida that he had a bad problem and was prone to having sex with other women, and that there was no way, and the doctors said that it was because of his body, but he was willing to try and remain loyal to Frida.
Frida stepped into the marriage without hesitation, and after the marriage, the two had a sweet time. But the good times did not last long, Rivera failed to keep her promise, and the scandal continued, and Frida fell into deep pain.
On the worst occasion, Rivera cheated on Frida's own sister, and Frida, who couldn't bear it, chose to divorce.
After the divorce, Frida became more independent and stronger on the surface. She cut off Rivera's favorite long hair, began to accept the lovers of men and women, began to indulge, abusive, and her heart was extremely painful.
Frida's Self-Portrait of Two Fridas after Divorce
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="147" > exhibition on the hospital bed</h1>
After the divorce, both were in great pain, and two years later on Frida's birthday, Rivera proposed to Frida again, and the two remarried until Frida died.
Regardless of the wind and rain, Frida has been painting, and she has opened exhibitions in New York and Paris, and has become a well-known painter. She also had many lovers for men and women. However, in addition to her relationship with Rivera, they are also flesh-and-blood, like-minded comrades-in-arms, like-minded others.
Frida had only held one exhibition in Mexico in her life, and in 1953, Frida's physical condition was already so bad that doctors advised her not to leave her hospital bed, and Frida arrived at the exhibition in her hospital bed.
She drank and sang all night and joked: "What you see is a living corpse."
Frida died in July 1954 at the age of 47.
On the day of Frida's funeral, Rivera's "like a soul that was cut in half." Three years later, Rivera was gone with Frida.
Theories about Frida's death are still widely debated, with some saying she died by suicide, some saying she died of a blood clot, and the most common saying being that she set herself on fire during a social movement.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="161" > written at the end</h1>
Frida's self-portraits are painful, some even bloody and can't bear to look at it, some people say that Frida is a surreal painter, but Frida said that she is not surreal, what I paint is my reality.
Frida spent her life fighting against the pain of her own flesh, against her own emotions, and her emotional indulgence and wandering became another expression, she was fragmented but brilliant.
She painted her scarred body, she painted her own painful heart, she painted her loneliness, she painted herself into every self-portrait.
"I paint self-portraits because I'm often lonely because I know myself best," she says. ”
Time magazine once summed up Frida's art as "an autobiography of painful ordeal painted with brushes and paints." ”
Frida, a hero among the victims, a soul in pain, a strong man who repays suffering.
But she said: "I don't want to influence others. I have no intention of becoming famous and starting a family. I have achieved nothing, and I am ashamed of the gift of life. ”
She also said that she had achieved nothing.
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