Frida Kahlo Love

now reblogging for amandaw’s truthiness! :)

amandaw:

fridakahlorocks:

yes, i am aware i have blogged this painting before but am reblogging it for all the text that is added here bcuz some folks may find it interesting. :)

sexismandthecity:

Frida Kahlo
Tree of Hope

This self-portrait includes two images of the artist. The first lies with her back toward us on a hospital gurney, her head to the left, apparently anesthetized. She is wrapped in a white sheet except for her lower back, which is exposed to show two large surgical cuts dripping blood. The second figure sits facing us in a chair in front of the right side of the gurney.

The sitting figure is essentially the familiar Frida Kahlo of many self-portraits—erect, beautifully dressed in colorful Mexican style, and her face composed in spite of the tear on her right cheek. The difference here is the presence of medical paraphernalia. The upright Kahlo holds in her lap a large back brace, and she seems to be simultaneously wearing the same device under her dress. In her right hand she holds a small flag with a Spanish inscription that could be translated: “Tree of hope, stay firm.”

The two figures float in space just above a lifeless and deeply eroded desert landscape. In front of them, at the very bottom of the painting, is the suggestion of an abyss. The painting is divided laterally, the left side ruled over by a sun and the darker right side (the figure’s left) ruled by the moon.

At the age of eighteen Kahlo was in a near-fatal bus accident that left her with injuries to her pelvis, spine, and uterus. The life she survived to live was full of physical suffering and medical procedures—and, of course, emotional distress. Many of her paintings address these things. “Tree of Hope” dramatically juxtaposes the severity and painfulness of Kahlo’s condition against her stoic determination to make the best of her life, even live it in style. (Kahlo’s friends often used the term alegria, or joy, to describe her spirit.)

The painting’s themes are complex. In a dark irony typical of her, Kahlo gives the flag with its hopeful words little red tassels that resemble the drops of blood oozing from the prostrate figure’s surgical wounds. Further complicating things, according to Hayden Herrera, is that (pre-Mexican) Aztecs’ view of blood was redemptive, and they would prick themselves with needles to stimulate healing—and of course Christianity has its own connection between blood and salvation.

Looking to other lives, “Tree of Hope” might ask, what is the relation between suffering and the will to go on in the face of one’s agonies? What is the connection between moon, night, and spirituality or selfhood? If the figure on the right could speak, what would she say?

Source

This is the first Frida painting that really caught my eye, in that way that I couldn’t look away. There’s so much in here to explore. The moon shines over her wearing her bright and spiritful dress, grasping the back brace, the tree of hope, what gives her hope at a life lived in that dress. But the sun shines on her pain-ridden naked body, dripping in blood. The light is on the physical brokenness, the dark on the uprightness. But even under that moon, she wears that brace. Appearing in health, she is still using a device to help her. And maybe that is why the sun shines over her broken body. Most people would reverse the light and dark sides, here, indicating darkness in brokenness and light in health. But she defies this, perhaps telling us that she finds her alegria in brokenness, that her determined attempts to live her life with joy could not be separated from her pain and physical realities. That it is the medical device which gives her the ability to experience that joy. She dreams under the moon of wearing her colorful flowing robes, complete with brace. Perhaps the darkness is not bad. Perhaps her broken body is what brings her light.

It is a picture of pain and disfigurement and disability that many people cannot wrap their minds around, one that is accepting, at peace, perhaps tenuously. Always the knowledge of fragility, the plea that the tree of hope stay firm. But accepting the tree, embracing the hope, accepting one’s wholeness while broken.