"A body less than perfect..."

That's the line that reverberated with me most when I went to La Casa Azul - The Blue House; home of the Mexican artist and icon Frida Kahlo, now turned into a museum. I had only vaguely heard about Frida before coming to Mexico, and when I did arrive, I couldn't place the name in conversation. I was shown a picture and I saw a woman with strong features and stark eyebrows. I couldn't see beyond that but I knew La Casa Azul was at the top of my list of places to visit during my weekend in Mexico City. And there I was met with a captivating story - glamorous, tragic, poetic, victorious. One I wanted to share here.

VOGUE México
Frida Kahlo
'Las Apariencias Engañan' - Looks Can Be Deceiving

On entering the home she shared with lover, husband, world-renowned artist Diego Rivera, I first saw a few of her paintings, all lacking perspective. It was a style that I could not connect with, one I could not appreciate to be honest. But as I read the story boards and understood the woman - maybe it's more precise to say I understood her as* a woman  - the experience became a rich one. Her paintings made sense. Quite simple, they told her story. And I felt like I was living it with her.

Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City in 1907 to a German-Hungarian father and an Amerindian-Spanish mother. The latter side, particularly indigenous Mexican culture, had a strong influence on her paintings - coming through with her use of bright colours and endemic style. This also influenced and shone through her sense of dress. She often wore bold jewellery, bright colours, and the traditional Tehuana dress. She stood apart from the rest. And so does her lovely home...

La Casa Azul
Coyoacán, Mexico

At the age of 6 Frida contracted polio, which left her right leg shorter and withered. She dreamed of studying medicine, but at the age of 18 an accident on the bus she was riding left her seriously injured with a broken spinal column, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, dislocated shoulder and several fractures on her legs. It is during the many months of recovery that her parents encouraged Frida to paint. A large part of her art is dominated by self-portraits, a characteristic she once explained by saying "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best," in reference to the months she spent in recovery. Although she did recover and eventually regained her ability to walk, she had relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life, sometimes leaving her bedridden for months at a time. She had as many as 35 operations during the rest of her life as a result of the accident. Her paintings reflect her physical wounds, but psychological ones as well.

A handrail also pierced her uterus, compromising her ability to reproduce. In her studio hangs a clinical-looking framed poster of the human reproductive process, with pictures of the different stages of a foetus' development and growth in the womb. A poster she must have found significantly important, if she kept it there. She painted about this, different paintings in her home reflecting the womb, warmth, fertility, and others showing barren lands and suggesting themes of the inability to bear children, emptiness, sadness.

'Naturaleza Muerta' by Frida Kahlo
Clear reflections on fertility and the womb.
The wooden carved frame itself was commissioned by Frida to look like a womb.

Frida came to use an extravagant style of dress, strongly influenced by indigenous Mexican culture. She stood out for this. This was a time when women were beginning to use clothing that showed the female form more. Pant suits, blouses and knee-length pencil skirts. Stockings and heels. And in her home you see pictures of Frida with these women. Frida completely different from all the rest. Beautiful. Bright colours, long flowing dresses, large ostentatious jewellery. Wonderful. Was it a way to reflect her heritage? To support her political beliefs? To hide her scars, her wounds, and her withered right leg? I can see the first two definitely applying. But the latter I can strongly relate to as well. She used her heritage and political beliefs in a powerful way where she stood out, wasn't seen as a victim, and yet managed to disguise what I imagine were her insecurities as a woman. The body she described as one "less than perfect."

Frida married the esteemed Mexican artist Diego Rivera in 1929, a tumultuous marriage marked by passion, irritable temperaments and several affairs on both sides. Diego knew of her bisexuality and tolerated her affairs with women, while those with men left him marred with jealousy. On her part, Frida could not accept one of Diego's affairs - that one with her younger sister Cristina. Following this discovery, she divorced him in 1939. But they remarried in 1940, the second round not any less turbulent than the first. Her paintings, again, reflect both her passion for her husband, and the pain she went through because of him. Frida and Diego were both supporters of the Mexican Revolution and active communists. They were involved in aiding Leon Trotsky with political asylum in Mexico, where he lived with the couple for a few years and had an affair with Frida. Her political beliefs are again a strong theme reflected in her work.

A Part of Frida's Studio/Workstation

During her lifetime, Frida was more known as "Diego Rivera's wife" rather than an artist in her own right. She only had a number of exhibitions, and an acquisition by the Louvre in 1939. It was only decades after her death that she began to receive recognition.

Parts of Frida's Studio

All the things I described above came together in her paintings: Her heritage, with the bright flamboyant colours. Her pain. Physical pain from the accident. Emotional pain from not being able to bear children. Her admiration for her husband. Her political beliefs and support for the communist movement. Her pain from infidelity. Her insecurities. Once I had all this information, I was looking at her paintings in a completely different light. Rose-tinted glasses, born from this captivating story?

No. Not quite.

Understanding. Understanding that she wasn't painting for the sake of a beautiful result. She was painting her reality as a woman undergoing a wide set of obstacles in life. The result is now to me a million times more captivating. I'll tell you one thing - I left La Casa Azul not even thinking of her eyebrows anymore. I was thinking more along the lines of the grandeur of the human spirit. The ability to overcome physical obstacles and emotional pain. Or at the very least, to try. To cope. To manage. To live. To get through, to get by. To strive and possibly to conquer.

'Viva La Vida' by Frida Kahlo
Was this her way of "signing out" in 1954?

Frida died in 1954 at the age of 47. An autopsy was never performed. A few days before her death, she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful - and I hope never to return - Frida."

Tragic.

http://www.museofridakahlo.org.mx/