By Gabriela Jackson
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), one of the most influential Mexican painters of the middle twentieth century, once wrote about her paintings, " They are the most honest expression of myself, never taking into consideration the judgments or prejudices of anyone."
Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits can be shocking and unappealing to the eye; the infamous unibrow, the female mustache, and the virile features can easily detract people from looking further into the meaning of her paintings. Frida Kahlo, however, never intended to please the crowds, belong to an artistic movement, or fulfill a set of conventions.
With her art, she just sought to express her reality, and the brokenness of her body and heart by employing elements from Mexican culture, European Realism, Symbolism, and Surrealism. Primarily, Frida used painting as the confessional for her soul. Each brush stroke on the canvas became an intimate and therapeutic experience.
Of her one hundred and forty-three paintings, fifty-five are self-portraits. Those self-portraits often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. From all of her self-portraits, “The Two Fridas” (1939) is the most painfully autobiographical; it exhibits a deep and shameless representation of her own personal reality.
"The Two Fridas" is an oil painting of women sitting on a bench outdoors with a turbulent cloudy sky in the background. It is a two-dimensional piece, almost replicating a stage with a painted backdrop. Its form is static, and the lines are fine and detailed. The harmonious combination of white and bright colors reflects Mexican folklore.
The composition’s main focus is the two women who evenly occupy most of each side of the canvas, and mirror each other in size and posture. On the right, one Frida wears a Tehuana costume and holds an amulet that bears the portrait of her husband Diego as a child. On the left, the other Frida wears a white Spanish wedding dress.
Both Fridas sit in frontal position, holding hands, with their hearts fully exposed. The Mexican Frida’s heart is whole while the Spanish Frida’s heart is broken. From the amulet that the Mexican Frida is holding, springs a vein that travels through both women’s heart. The Spanish Frida keeps the vein from a massive hemorrhage by holding its end with a surgical clamp. Drops of blood drip from the cut vein staining her European white dress. Although, this piece shows inertness and introspective seriousness, its meaning is far from static, inert, or theatrical.
Frida Kahlo painted “The Two Fridas” after her divorce from Diego Rivera, the love of her life and her husband of ten years. This painting is highly symbolic; it is a revelation of herself and of all the sufferings accumulated throughout her life, with her divorce being the pinnacle of her agony.
In this work, Frida acknowledges her mixed blood, Mexican Indian and Spanish, both different but inseparable. The two Fridas also represent the sexual, psychological, and emotional duality in her life. The Mexican Frida is the one Diego fell in love with. The portrait of him when he was a child suggests that she loved who Diego used to be, or that he was an immature person, or a combination of both. His portrait pumps blood up to her heart but, inevitably, tears the other side of her as well, reflecting the tortuous relationship with the man she loved and hated at the same time.
The Spanish Frida, on the other hand, is the one who has been rejected. She is more sophisticated, a resemblance of what the artist has become. She is passively bleeding to death trying to save herself with a surgical clamp which holds the end of the cut vein right over her womb, symbolizing her traumatic previous abortions and her inability to have children.
The presence of the surgical instrument also implies all the surgeries Frida had to endure after surviving a car accident. She suffered fractures of her back, collarbone, and ribs, as well as a shattered pelvis and shoulder, and foot injuries. The condition of the Spanish Frida, an open empty heart unable to generate a heartbeat, seems to be what is left of Frida when making this painting.
The blood represents the passion that once allowed her to live and now is leaving her lifeless. The blood has to do with love, excruciating pain, loss, perhaps a comparison to the sufferings of Christ; he was broken physically and spiritually. Yet, in the midst of all, there is no desperation or cries for help; the two Fridas are motionless, their faces contemplating in a fixed state of introspection as if the suffering could not be either overcome or ignored. There is a certain hopelessness that comes from a deep realization of a broken cycle, a broken vein, a shattered existence. Nevertheless, there is also a hint of pride and stubbornness in the pose, a determination to survive.
This painting is very profound because it shows Frida at the core of her being; it exposes her heart. If the spectator allows himself to explore the meaning behind the images, he or she will see Frida’s exhibition of her own scars on the canvas. The portrayed pain will seduce the spectator to contemplate the work with the same intense and static introspection with which the two Fridas contemplate their own being.
The spectator will realize that the anguish of “The Two Fridas” is not only restricted to Frida’s life but is a universal reality. The difference is that Frida boldly expressed her suffering through painting, even with a “failing” heart, and with the hope that the turbulent cloudy sky in the background will soon pass.
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