Stage 1, Artist (4% of course grade): To begin, select a female artist from the sixteenth century to the present whose work you enjoy, and then begin to narrow your focus to a particular aspect of that artist's work. The most compelling exhibitions are not just about an artist; instead they offer a viewpoint about some facet of that artist's work. For example, instead of an exhibition on Judith Leyster, you could do an exhibition on the symbolism in her paintings, or on her images of people playing music, or on how gender roles are reflected in her images. Another example—instead of writing about Lavinia Fontana, you might construct an exhibition that supports the thesis that her success was ...view middle of the document...
Frida endured many health issues at an early age; she also had a few bad marriages. At six years old Frida developed polio and then at sixteen years old she was in a serious bus accident. I want to cover several of her portraits and explain why she painted such graphic pictures during her illness. What did the picture symbolize?
The two journals that I found in the library were:
1). Int Forum Psychchoanal 7: (133-155), 1998, I Made a Picture of My Life – a Life from the Picture, The Life of the Body in the Pictures and Writings of Frida Kahlo
This article discussed Frida’s life on how she contracted polio at the age of six and her bus accident that she has that resulted in her never being able to give birth to a child. Also, discussed how her pictures derived from her life as a woman. The writer wants to provide the reader with his story and present Frida as being special to the world. He felt that Frida’s self- portraits were an intensive study of herself. This made her feel that she existed. He discussed several of her paintings “My Birth”, this painting showed how she imagined her birth. The dying birth mother and the dying child reflect Frida’s early relationships. Another portrait that the author discusses is “My Nanny and I”, which Frida wrote in her notes, ‘I was fed by the earth, whose breast was always washed when I began to suck” (p. 138). Frida had a compulsive relation, with mirrors, she surrounded herself with these mirrors. For the last 10 years of her life, she kept a diary. In her diary, she spoke of love, suffering and her secrets.
2) Hispanic Research Journal, Vol 8, No 5, December 2007, 467-489, “At the Café de los Cachuchas”: Frida Kahlo in the 1920s
The author analyzed a couple of Kahlo’s earlier paintings. The essay proposes new readings of two of her most important early paintings done shortly after her tragic accidents. One of the works that was examined is an oft –reproduced unfinished picture. This picture was known as “Pancho Villa and Adelita”, part of three related images in which Kahlo imagines herself and her high school classmate, who called themselves the “Cachuchas”, as members of an avant-grade artist group (p. 468). The other most important painting was a 1927 portrait of a close friend, the poet Miguel N. Lira, one of the most innovative images done in Mexico in this period (p. 468). The two works were not as famous as the other paintings; however, they helped the understanding of her artistic style.
Kahlo became a...
