Las Dos Fridas

William Bachilla

   On September 7th, Art Historian Eleanor Schrader Schapa, shared the the vibrant, disturbing art and life of Frida Kahlo with the Santa Monica College Community.  Schrader Schapa described both the physical and emotional pain Frida endured during her life.  Ultimately, the experience of living with her pain motivated Frida's striking artwork.  In 1939, the Mexican bohemian artist Frida Kahlo completed one of her most telling self-portraits, The Two Fridas (Las Dos Fridas). This painting depicts the traditionally Mexican minded, traditionally Mexican dressed Frida hurt and exposed, sitting next to, and holding the right hand of the strong, independent, cosmopolitan Frida, who is obviously the protector of the weaker, more traditional Frida. The hearts of both Fridas are visible, and the heart of the traditional Frida is cut and torn open. The main artery, which comes from the torn heart down to the right hand of the traditional Frida, is severed. She uses surgical pincers to try to stem the flow of blood, yet it continues to drip down onto her white dress, forming an expanding crimson pool.  The heart of the strong Frida, however, is fully intact and is feeding lifeblood through a connecting vein to the weaker, traditional Frida. What is it that has left the traditional Frida in such a wretched state, and more importantly, what is it that has allowed the strong Frida to remain not only unscathed, but in a position to feed and protect the other?

      Frida Kahlo, the daughter of a loving father and a distant mother, was born in Coyoacan, Mexico, in 1907. Stating that she and her beloved country were born of revolution, Kahlo would later change her birth date to 1910, to coincide with the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.  Mexico, at the time of her birth, was, and still is, a highly patriarchal society.  Its longstanding Spanish, European, and Catholic traditions smothered this country in a dominating male blanket.  Women were, by and large, forced into a socially constructed role of subservient daughter, submissive wife, and attentive mother. In most cases, women were seen by males as nothing more than objects.  Often the only respect a Mexican woman would receive from males in her culture would come from any sons she may have borne.  In this, there is great irony.  Mexican sons saw their mothers as nothing less than living saints. Yet these sons grew up in a household dominated by a male who objectified the woman they held in such high regard. Ironically, a father undoubtedly saw his own mother as a near-godly perfection.  The religious connotations are obviously here.  Mexican culture was, and is, dominated by deep Catholic roots that also forbid a woman to use birth control, forbid abortion, and forbid divorce.  Because of this socially constructed role of women Frida Kahlo grew up desiring more than anything else to be an attentive wife and perfect mother. Fate, however, had other plans for Frida.

      At the age of six, Frida was stricken with polio, which left her with a shortened and deteriorated right leg.  To cover this deformity, Frida began to wear the long, flowing, native Mexican dresses that, in later life, she would become well known for, especially in the United States. While it is unquestionable that she cherished the rooted traditions of Mexico, one might wonder whether her choice of dress was truly made out of her own preference, or served only to hide her withered leg.  Perhaps, given other physical circumstances, Frida may have chosen to dress more often in men’s suits.  On more than one occasion, she was photographed in such attire, and even painted herself wearing a suit and a cropped man's haircut in a self-portrait.

      Frida was an intelligent young girl, and although it was not customary for Mexican women to attend school at this time, she was accepted, in 1922, to the prestigious National Preparatory School in Mexico City. She was only one of 35 females in a student body of 2,000. She quickly distinguished herself as an intellectual, becoming one of the leaders of the Cachuchas, an elite, left wing group, named after their distinguishing hats. Her fellow leader was boyfriend, Alejandro Gomez Ariaz, who would play a part in the truly defining moment of her life.

      In 1925, at the age of eighteen, shortly before Frida planned to enter medical school, the bus she and Alejandro were taking from Mexico City to her home in Coyoacan, was struck by an out of control tram.  Frida sustained massive injuries, including a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a fractured and crushed right foot, eleven separate fractures of the right leg, and a dislocated shoulder.  Injuries to Frida's spine and pelvis permanently impaired her health. Her spinal column was broken in three places and would require her, beginning in the mid-1940’s, to wear a steel or plaster girdle.  In the late forties and early fifties, she would undergo a series of surgeries to fuse her spine together, procedures which did little more than leave her in agonizing pain, which she was only able to bear with massive doses of drugs.  The back injuries and unsuccessful attempts at correction appear in numerous paintings including one in which her spine is seen as a crumbling ionic column.  The most severe injury Frida sustained was a broken pelvis. In the accident, Frida was impaled on a handrail that had broken loose from the bus. The pole drove through her body, shattering her pelvis in the process, and, as Frida would later note, stealing her virginity as it exited through her vagina.

      The immediate effects of this devastating series of injuries came quickly. Once Alejandro saw her safely to the hospital, and she never heard from him again.  It seemed that her physical appearance and lost virginity made her no longer attractive to this young, educated man with a promising future. The longstanding effect of the pelvic injury and the severe infections that followed resulted in her inability to bear children.  Although unknown at the time of the injury, because of the damage done, Frida would suffer miscarriages or abortions with each attempted pregnancy.

      Through the terrible event of this bus crash, however, the world would come to know Frida Kahlo. During her yearlong recuperation, most of it spent in pain, and flat on her back, she began to paint. Sadly, her first painting was a stunning self-portrait for Alejandro. She beautifully depicted herself in a red flowing dress, perhaps reminiscent of an earlier day, as she seems free of injury. She would go on to create 55 paintings of herself during her life, giving her viewers an intimate look at her inner thoughts and pain.  

      Nearly fully recovered, and now intent on being an artist rather than a medical student, Kahlo would begin to move in new circles, which brought her in contact with a man she had been acquainted and enamored with while at the National Preparatory School--the famous muralist Diego Rivera. Rivera had been hired to paint a mural at her school, and she would spend long hours watching or flirting with him and even declared once to a friend that she would have his baby. Now Frida at 20 years old, and Diego at forty, struck up a romance that would lead to their marriage in 1929. Frida threw herself wholeheartedly into this marriage, hoping to satisfy her desire to be the perfect wife.  Unfortunately, just as with her desire to be a perfect mother, events out of her control would see that this desire would never be fulfilled. Diego was an unapologetic adulterer who carried on numerous affairs behind Frida’s back. In 1933 he went as far as to strike up a yearlong affair with Frida’s own sister, Cristina.

      The defeated relationship with Diego, continuing corrective operations--thirty of which she would have to endure during her short life--and another abortion in 1934, brought Frida to the turning point of her life. No longer would she be a doting wife. She now began affairs with other men, including the exiled communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky, and other women, including Georgia O’Keefe.  At this point, she would re-ignite her heavy involvement in politics, faithfully committed as a life long member of the Communist Party. In 1939, Frida and Diego divorced. They remarried a year later only after Diego agreed to Frida’s arrangement of financial independence from each other, and no sexual relations.

      In 1953, Kahlo’s right leg was amputated after a gangrenous infection. In July of 1954, although in very poor health, she stubbornly attended a Communist rally and, after sitting in the pouring rain for hours, contracted pneumonia. Just two weeks later, on July 13, 1954, Frida Kahlo died. Her last entry in her diary read, “I hope the leaving is joyful, and I hope never to return.”

      In the 1970’s, the paintings and life of Frida Kahlo enjoyed a revival in the United States, fostered largely by the growing feminist movement. American feminists held Frida Kahlo as an example of a strong, non-conforming woman who left open evidence of her rampant individuality through her provocative, often shocking, highly recognized paintings. However, one might ask why Frida Kahlo, a devoted wife to an abusive husband, a woman who once longed to be known only as a good mother and wife, was so readily embraced by the feminist movement. In order to understand Frida Kahlo as a feminist, one must take in to account the time period and cultural context in which her life evolved and revolved.

      Frida Kahlo existed in a society that taught her to desire to be a perfect mother and wife. The circumstances of her life, however, would never allow for that. Each person is affected by a lifetime of individual experiences. What an individual does with those experiences is a true indicator of character. Frida Kahlo is a perfect example of one’s life experiences being used to educate and strengthen an individual. She lived for only 47 hard, painful years, yet she proved herself a woman who would not live according to the social expectations of her time and culture. The strong Frida in Kahlo’s portrait The Two Fridas is the woman she became when she realized that her society's traditions and cultural expectations were unreachable and unrealistic. The traditional Frida in the portrait does not convey any physical disability. Instead, what is laid before the audience is a woman whose traditional clothes are torn and stained, her shattered heart exposed. What is seen is a woman beaten down by the life she was expected to live. The traditional Frida’s saving grace is that the strong Frida recognized these quixotic demands for what they were, and adjusted her life accordingly. What emerged is the Frida Kahlo that feminists have proudly been able to hold up as an icon of strength, leadership, and rugged individualism.