Prisilla Bueno
september 22, 2017
Throughout the history of humanity,
Art has played an important role in our societies. Art is defined as “something that is created
with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important
ideas or feelings: works created by artists: paintings, sculptures, etc. “There
are quite a few art periods and to enumerate just a few: Medieval, Renaissance,
Baroque, Romanticism, Academic, Impressionism, Surrealism (from 1920) …etc.
During my visit at MOMA, I have admired some beautiful paintings from different
artists, different periods. One of the paintings from Frida Kahlo caught my
attention “My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree). By researching let’s see how Frida’s painting
reflects the art period that she lived, the ideas and feelings that she was
expressing, an artist of the Surrealism art period.
Frida was born in Mexico; her father
was a German photographer who migrated to Mexico and married her mother
Matilde. At the age of 6, she had polio
but she recovered from the illness that left her slightly crippled. Later, she was involved in a car accident
that left her infertile. She was a very
intelligent, she became a political activist and her oil paintings contributed
to her fame. In her art work, her
emotions, her pain, her opposition can be felt. Some considered her art as
controversial. By reading the label of
the painting mentioned above, one can understand why the artist choose to
express her views, her emotions through some non-verbal manner in favor of
imagery: “While Kahlo celebrated Mexican culture by invoking its traditions in
her art and wearing elaborate traditional attire, this painting is as much a
tribute to her European and Jewish heritage. On the right are her German-born
Jewish father and his parents, symbolized by the sea, and on the left her
Mexican mother and her parents, symbolized by the land and a faintly rendered
map of Mexico that appears above her grandparents’ heads. Kahlo was fluent in
German and closely monitored the rise of Nazism in Europe. She made this
painting shortly after Hitler passed the Nuremberg laws, forbidding interracial
marriage. While the painting adopts the format of genealogical charts used by
the Nazis to advocate racial purity, Kahlo uses it subversively to affirm her
mixed origins”
The dramatic life of Frida is
reflected on all her art work, her illness, her handicap, her emotions all
contributed to some of the provocative images that she had produced through her
paintings. Some of her works were more
challenging than others; Critics even characterized some of them as
controversial. The surrealism art period
was a movement where Artists employed fantasy and dream imagery, “artists
created works in a variety of Medias that exposed their inner minds in
eccentric, symbolic ways, uncovering anxieties and treating them analytically
through visual means”. By analyzing the
period that the artist lived in, one can easily understand how harsh life was
for a woman, handicapped, married, divorced then remarried. In that period society wanted a woman to be
pretty, submissive and a mother. She had
to face this constant gender struggle; she chooses to overcome these obstacles
by using Art through her paintings and expressing her inner thoughts.
Kahlo also used her Art to bring
attention to the mistreatment of women and to aid the feminist movement. “She
taught painting to youth across Mexico, affecting hundreds of lives with her
mentorship. In her final days she left the hospital, despite doctors’ orders,
to participate in a political protest. She was in a wheelchair, having lost a
leg to gangrene, sickly thin, with colorful yarn tied into her hair. The things
she saw and experienced led to the dramatic works that flowed from her brush”.
In my thought I feel she express their feelings, their
emotions, their happiness, their sorrow either through paintings or sculptures
… Researchers have found evidence that humans evolved to be moved by art. Frida
Kahlo is no exception, she used Art to promote awareness using different
techniques and manners that were appropriate during that moment and conform to
the art movement “Surrealism”. As humans,
our emotions, our passions, our feelings can guide us and can help us make a
difference. Art can be considered as a form of communication to denounce what
is unjust, to show acceptance, to expose the beauty of our world.
Work cited:
www.moma.org/collection/works/78784
www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm
