Trajedy is the Most Ridiculous Thing (PB)

"She's the one with the unibrow, right?" 

 

Yeah, she is.  But for today, let's focus on everything else about this wonderful and incredible woman. 

 

I recently watched the Oscar winning film called Frida, obviously about the late painter Frida Kahlo.  I hadn't realized that although I have always admired her work, there was so much I did not know about her fascinating life story.  I had known that she had been in an accident that had damaged her spine and had caused her to be crippled for the rest of her life, in extreme levels of pain almost constantly.  I had known that she had to wear braces and casts and squeeze into wheelchairs, and eventually be bed ridden, (still painting of course).  I knew the difficulties she faced because of this experience influenced her work, as her illness isolated her through the years.  I also knew that a bizarre hatred of New York was introduced after she moved from her native location, and that most of her paintings were self portraits.  What I hadn't known was..... well, many things. 

 

I am ashamed to admit that I had not yet made the connection from Frida to the wildly celebrated artist Diego Rivera.  The two were married, and that important detail somehow managed to escape my mind.  The paired painters had one of the most interesting relationships I have ever observed.  Both partners consistently had affairs, and while it was mostly on Diego's side, Frida participated as well.  Two notable interactions that had caused major strain on the relationship were first Diego's sexual relations with Frida's sister, and then later, Frida's surprising affair with Leon Trotsky, the Marxist revolutionary that Frida had helped take refuge while being sought out by the government.  She was presumed bisexual, if you are into labels, and had flings with multiple women.  Frida and Diego were always fighting and on the edge.  Despite all of this, they had a passionate love that carried on to the end, and were loyal the whole way through. 

 

Sadly, Frida suffered through an abortion and a miscarriage, and the despairing feelings produced from carrying the memories of her lost children around played a major part in her work.  Her disdain for the pompous New Yorkers was also evident in her self taught (!) portraits and landscapes.  The woman was a strong and important artist that produced beautiful work expressing vulnerability and depression, paired with elation and the bold happiness of a woman that loved her hard life.  She continues to connect to the world and modern women today, just as the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo do, because they all have one common factor.  They make you feel something.  And isn't that what art is supposed to do?  It's supposed to make you feel.