Posted
on July 6, 2016
 |
| Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera |
Her
eyebrows?
Did
you like how I snuck that in there?
Rather
than minimizing her eyebrows through plucking and shaping them in a
stereotyped version of what women's eyebrows should look like...
Rather
than minimizing her eyebrows in her self-portraits by painting them a
bit lighter, a bit smaller, a bit less uni-brow-y...
Rather
than idealizing her own features and “femininity”...
Frida
Kahlo (born on this date in 1907, as Magdalena
Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón) actually exaggerated her eyebrows,
making them larger, blacker, and more uni-brow-y; she was known for
uncompromising portrayals of herself and of other subjects.
Here
are just a few of the interesting things about this very interesting
woman:
Frida
contracted polio when she was just six years old, and one of her legs
was thinner than the other as a result. She needed to recover her
strength, and she became very active and played several sports, going
against the unwritten rules of her society in order to do things that
only boys were supposed to do. Her activities included bicycling,
roller skating, swimming, boxing, and wrestling.
When
she was just 18 years old, she was in a bus accident, and she was
seriously injured. She suffered from a broken spinal column, a broken
collarbone, broken ribs, eleven fractures of her polio-affected leg,
a crushed and dislocated foot, and an abdomen pierced by a bit of
iron. The effects of this accident lasted all her life; she had to
deal with tons of pain, off-and-on all her life, she had months of
recovery in a full body cast but sometimes had to be hospitalized or
bedridden, years later; she had to have 35 operations on her back,
leg, and foot; and she could never have a child.
Before
the bus accident, Frida was studying medicine. During the recovery
from the accident, she began to paint. It was something she could do
in bed, thanks to the special easel her mom ordered. Kahlo said that
she painted so many self-portraits because “I am so often alone and
because I am the subject I know best.” By the end of her life and
artistic career, Kahlo had created 55 self-portraits (out of about
140 paintings).
Here are two of her pieces that are NOT self-portraits:
Kahlo
grew up in La Casa Azul (the Blue House), in Mexico City; this very
blue house became a museum in 1958.
Also
on this date:
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