A few days ago I heard a YouTube reviewer describe Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas (1939) as Mexico's Mona Lisa. And that resonated with me for, like Mona Lisa, The Two Fridas is an iconic work created by an iconic artist which has attained the pinnacle of national cultural relativism. In a characteristic not shared by Mona Lisa, The Two Fridas is a homegrown product created by a national and resident in a national institution.
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| Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939 |
Before delving into the painting I would like to spend a little time discussing Frida' views on her art and the immediate context within which the piece was created.
Frida married the famed muralist Diego Rivera in 1929. He was 20 years her senior and on his third marriage. During the 1930s, Frida underwent a number of surgical procedures to include an appendectomy, amputation of gangrenous toes, numerous foot-related surgeries, and two miscarriages. In addition, her mother died in 1932.
The union was "unconventional and problematic" with numerous affairs on both sides (including one with Diego and Frida's sister Cristina (pbs.org)). Diego's philandering exacerbated the lifelong pain resulting from her trolley accident. As she stated, "I suffered two great accidents in my life ... One in which a streetcar knocked me down ... The other accident is Diego." In one of her letters to Diego at the time doctors were considering amputating her leg, Frida stated "No, I was already a married woman when I lost you, again, for the umpteenth time maybe, and still I survived ... I am not afraid of pain and you know it. It is almost inherent to my being, although I confess that I suffered, and a great deal, when you cheated on me every time you did it, not just with my sister but with so many other women" (timesnownews.com).
Here we already begin to see themes of emotional and physical pain as endemic in Frida's life; Diego as the source of much of that emotional pain; and her ability to survive in the face of that pain.
In discussing her paintings, Frida stated thusly (The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo, pbs.org):
Really, I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know they are the frankest expression of myself ... since my subjects have always been my sensations, my state of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself.
Here Frida stipulates that the subjects of her paintings are objectification of non-physical aspects of her life.
In 1938, just prior to her leaving Mexico for her first solo exhibition in New York, Diego informed Frida that he intended to divorce her. This was devastating news and another in a long list of betrayals on his part. In 1939, "anxious and adrift," Frida traveled from the US to France at the invitation of Breton who promised a surrealist-themed, Parisian exhibition of her work. In addition to all of the personal issues she was facing: her materials were stuck in customs for an extended period; her accommodations were less than desirable; she found the surrealist community insufferable; and the exhibition would not be of her works solely. Frida complained about all this in a series of letters to her lover, the American photographer Nickolas Murray. At the conclusion of her Parisian trip, Frida headed to New York where she was supposed to liaise with Murray but he waved her off as he had found a new love.
This was the Frida that returned to Mexico to face a divorce and all that a life outside the Diego orbit would entail.
The Painting
The Two Fridas is a double self-portrait which was completed in 1939, shortly after Frida and Diego's divorce.
The rightmost figure is an image of Frida dressed in a traditional Tehuana ensemble (paying homage to her indigenous heritage) looking directly at the viewer and with legs at a "mansplaining" angle. She is holding a miniature portrait of Diego as a child between her thumb and forefinger, said portrait linked to an extra-body heart by a blood-vessel-adjacent structure.
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| Detail from The Two Fridas (Source: smarthistory.org) |
Frida's seating position seems non-natural in relation to the bench.
The leftmost Frida is dressed in a high-necked, European-style wedding dress (paying homage to her father's European roots) and her facial pallor is whiter than is the case for "Traditional" Frida. The "hearts" of both Fridas are connected by a single circuit but Euro-Frida's heart exhibits evidence of severe damage. There is an unregulated branching of the Euro-Frida vessel with the pre-heart branch reaching downwards and spilling fluid onto the floral-patterned skirt even though restrained by a pincer which has been deployed to staunch the flow.
The two Fridas are holding hands and both possess the unmistakeable features of the creator: bold eyebrows; facial hair; austere outward gazes; and banded updos. The angle of the bench visible to the left of Euro-Frida does not comport with the angle visible between the two forms.
The barren landscape is of a reddish-brown hue and stretches to the horizon where it gives way to storm-cloud-laden skies.
Initially Frida wrote in her diary that this painting originated from her memory of an imaginary childhood friend but later admitted that it expressed her desperation and loneliness with the separation from Diego. "The divorce period is often described as emotionally intense for Kahlo, and it aligns with a time when her work carried a sharp sense of rupture and self-examination. Divorce, for her, wasn't just a legal change. It was a confrontation with who she was outside the relationship and whether such a change was even possible after years of being intertwined with Rivera's world" (estragy.com).
In an insight shared with a friend, Frida indicated that Traditional Frida represented the Frida that Diego loved while Euro-Frida represented the Frida that he rejected.
Frida generally worked on smaller canvasses. At 5.69 feet x 5.68 feet, The Two Fridas marked a dramatic departure from her norm. The painting was acquired by the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City at a cost of 4000 pesos (about $1000) including 36 pesos for the frame (This was the most money she had received for a painting during her lifetime.). It was included in the International Exhibition of Surrealism at the Gallery of Mexican Art (Mexico City) in 1940 and was transferred to the Museum of Modern Art (Mexico City) in 1966.
My Interpretation
The system illustrated herein is not a closed-loop system. It begins with an immature, childlike Diego being the fount of emotion-battering material which Traditional Frida, even though being closest to the source, is able to impassively process and filter before passing it on. Frida has referred to Diego as being an accident and has referred to him in other sources as a child. She expects pain from this source and the figure indicates that it is the Mexican side of the coin that is able to handle this pain impassively and move on. Hence, this is the Frida that Diego likes. This is the Frida that allows him to be indisciplined and that continues to absorb the blows without holding up a mirror to his face.
The caustic emotional brew does its damage to Euro-Frida, whose seat of emotions is visibly scarred; even though some of the mess has been directed to the off -channel. Euro-Frida is unable to internalize the material and some of it spills out into the open, sullying reputations in the process. Diego does not like this Frida. By his standards, she is weak. She refuses to (or can't) suffer silently. Her pallor and the stuff that slips out between the pincer's grip alerts the external world to the pain and suffering that the system is being subjected to.
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