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Even those of us who never took art history can recognize a few pieces in just about every museum. Warhols stand out on any wall. Jackson Pollock's splatter-fests are apparent from across the room. And, of course, Frida Kahlo's self-portraits are unmistakable. The famed Mexican painter frequently used herself as a subject, although she didn't really appear in all of her paintings. According to Yahoo! Reference, "55 of her 143 paintings are self-portraits." It's tempting to label
Kahlo a narcissist and be done with it, but the truth behind the unibrow is far more complex. Frida Kahlo led a very interesting and difficult life. As a young woman, she was involved in a bus accident that made it impossible for her to have children. Understandably, the physical and emotional pain lingered for years. In many of Kahlo's paintings, her suffering is reflected on the canvas. This essay, appropriately entitled "Frida and Her Obsession with Self-Portraits," makes the case that her paintings were "a sort of
therapy to survive, an alienation of suffering and physical pain from herself." Granted, we don't have Ph.D.s in art history, but that makes a lot of sense to us. Several other sites offer similar thoughts. This biography from the Artchive states that Kahlo used her work to chart "the events of her life and her emotional reactions to them." So, perhaps we should think of Kahlo's body of work as an autobiography and each painting as a different chapter. But, hey, that's just our take on it...
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