Codreanu, F.: Dynamics of Blood in Frida Kahlo's Creation

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov • Vol. 2 (51) - 2009Series IV: Philology and Cultural StudiesDYNAMICS OF BLOOD IN FRIDAKAHLO’S CREATIONFlorina CODREANU 1Abstract: Frida Kahlo is one of the first feminine blazes on the masculinestage of painting. Until the beginning of the 20 th century, female artists wereassociated with water colours, thus Kahlo is a pioneer of oil painting.Moreover, her personalized style gathers elements in a surprisingcombination that wasn’t experienced by art before. One of these elements isblood and its attributes – national, familial, Christian, uterine, malign,sacrificial, exposed and so on, in a vibrant relation with the idea of staginessand mask. An invitation to the never-ending carnival, Frida Kahlo’s workdoesn’t conceive inner transformation, but only interchangeable settings andprops. From this point of view her art materializes the dynamics of death.Key words: blood, mask, self-portrait, death, identity, Modernism, Mexico.1. IntroductionAs a whole Frida Kahlo’s contribution topainting history is explosive andexhibitionistic; throwing art consumersagainst fulfilled suffering, along with animpressionistic function that is not ofstraight identification, but of reluctanceand identitary anxiety.In the light of a cultural discoursedivided into three (what is calledMexicaness or national conscienceextended to stereotypy and repetition,political voice assuming fanatically thepromise of Communist judgement andgender revealing an impeccable feministvictimised identity), the artist is at thesame time the Tehuan Indian, the partyactivist or the wounded woman by thenegligent lustful man.Artistic value within her existence isinevitably descended from it: „I painted myown reality...“ (Kettenmann 48) As anartist she didn’t fall back on tricks ofartisticity; in other words she took parts ofherself and exhibited them shamelessly onwaiting canvas. Nevertheless, in the virilityof her representations we see asupernatural strife to keep up with theexclusivist revolutionary masculine milieufrom the beginning of Modernist era.2. The Concert of IsmsBrought up under the exigency ofpersonal history, all the same Kahlo arisesfrom the meeting of some isms whichpartially explain her artistic style.Humanist through education andmessage, as regards life understanding andinterrelation, the artist ensured herself aplace in the world system through a strongindividualization.From Baroque she absorbed the allegory,later on visible in the act of playingbetween representation akin to kitsch andsubliminal meaning. Also, the well-knownbaroque staginess is reduced to a collection1 PhD Student, Department of World and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Letters, Babeş-BolyaiUniversity, Cluj-Napoca.

250Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov • Vol. 2 (51) - 2009 • Series IVof masks. For that matter masking isexpressed clearly by an impressive numberof self-portraits in which motion andgestures are denied from the start. Actionis illustrated only symbolically, either as amanifesto, or as a principle, never asmotion itself. Therefore, Frida’s universe,despite its bold exteriorization, is actuallyclosed, without hope, spinning the neverendingvicious cycle of disease, surgeries,infections and corsets. To malignrepeatability she reacts defensively with asort of evanescent titanic behaviour(excessive attitude, parties, bisexuality,alcohol and narcotics).Predilection for portrait bares uptightinertness caused by suffering, which canbe neither overcome, nor ignored. Painseduction is too powerful, and the viewerwatching her painting is isolated in thesame contemplation with the artist.Moreover, dramatism is just a pose,manipulating the spectator by an appeal tohis emotions and rewarding him, in theend, with the revelation of the maincharacter: the otherness that suffers fromcentrality. Whether there is or nottransformation in Frida Kahlo’s artrepresents the stake for the present study.In the 19 th century the Realistconventions and standards discard wasissued and the mirror-like worldrepresentation took over. The future artistprecociously felt the world as it is throughpoliomyelitis. The disease acted as acatalyst for an invalided dissimilarcategory: she is going to be identified bythe children in the suburb as peg-leg Frida(pata de palo). Later on, her creation is tore-embrace the world in the mirror throughnudity elements, anti-capitalist attitude andvirulent social critique. The relevance ofemotional and social order stands at thecentre of her artistic vision that proliferatesin accordance with beauty denial andemphasis on contiguous materialism. Allthe way it macerates the same suffering,changing only the settings.During Modernism, the cultural agesynchronous to the biography underconsideration, there is a relation of partialsynonymy between Frida and experimentalart, seeking solutions not only for artexpression, but also for surviving. Thebackground consists in deep radicalism:challenging the whole human body andlisting carefully all the deformities ofindustry and internationalism 1 .The designation of artistic vision asdominant religion meant a concomitantrejection of what is of industrial origin.Accordingly, the artist initiated a valuationof primitivism, pointing out anethnographic interest for Mexican traditionand for the vigour of Aztec legacy in termsof encouraging the reproductive quality ofart. The civilization kept alive byproliferating technical ramifications,smoke, wires or pipes contrasts with thesimplicity and emotional charge of thenon-occidental archaic realm, the cycle ofnature and the regenerating strength of theland. Anyone would say: a voluntaryinsolent simplification, impregnated withdark humour and punitive opprobrium!Reaching the pinnacle of her creativeexpression, she is wooed by Surrealismthrough Breton’s mediation: „The art ofFrida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb“(Burrus 66), being assigned to Surrealistirrational and subversive matter when as amatter of fact Frida’s painting istremendously studied. The so-calledrepressed creativity, sub-consciousness parexcellence, is actually sought, hunted forits redeeming value. However what drewFrida close to the Surrealists are herhumour palpitating of anti-bourgeois socialfervour and her ambivalent attitude,sometimes highly negative, towardswomen: not to be forgotten her virileportraits, blessed with thick eyebrows,

Codreanu, F.: Dynamics of Blood in Frida Kahlo’s Creation 251moustache and constant endurance oftraits!A final historic contract is legalised withthe Social Realism having as subscribers:critique, justice, class-fighting anddeclamation of inconvenient truths, such asunconcealed ugliness. There is a chopperpressure to look attractive and on thatscore chopping a woman’s hair is viewedas a feminist manifesto: See, if I loved you,it was for your hair; now that you’re bald,I don’t love you any more 2 .3. Becoming an ArtistFrida experienced on her own flesh thehistory of art through all the ordeals towhich life itself subjected her. Willingly,she didn’t belong to any orientation, trendor artistic group, but she undertook fromexistence – for creative purposes –everything concerning her physiognomy ofcrossbred sensibility, respectively heracknowledgement of mixed blood, Indianand Spanish.Duality in Khalo functions as a generalmark, and not only because her origin isshared out between German grandparentson the father’s side and Mexicans on themother’s 3 : in a happy onset of the world, anaked child keeps firm the red ribbon ofblood bond. Her gesture confirms fertilityand continuance of genetic heritage. Bymeans of idyllism and exoticism, therepresentation could fall under the searingbeam of kitsch. Despite this possibleimputation, the allegory of her family hidin fact three spontaneous abortions,ovarian infantilism and the case ofimpossibility in having descendants. Still,the same plate of disconcerting irony afterlong and hard months of suffering!Kahlo’s basal dualism, fundamental forthe development of the future artist, is atconstant display within the dyad femininemasculine,Khalo-Rivera, the dove and theelephant 4 - who is to the same extent thefrog, the cannibal, women devourer, aninsatiable spirit that lighted up in Frida thewhole artistic arsenal, providing her with ameaning against an implacable fate. Fridatested so often physical androgyny (both inclothing or emotions) in revenge on manfor his affairs, for being caught in thesearch and consumption of pluralfemininity. An early desire to overthrowthe traditional roles shared within Mexicansociety is obvious in her revoltedbehaviour against the husband.Modern tragedian, with a well-definedappetence for blood expressingmetaphysical suffering and Christianpassion, Kahlo witnesses above ground herown death, without ceasing to hope for anew birth by way of corporal dispersal.Her body, hard-to-bear layer, is going torepresent the easel of a medicalexperiment, reiterated and failed all alongthe line. Training desperately for the roleof wounded animal, inside the theatre of abarren world, with a leap in time cancelledby adverse nature 5 , the human called Fridaisn’t in the know of metamorphosis, butonly in the know of arrows and nailsconstellation.Concomitantly, almost invariably, bymeans of her underneath ribbons, the artistreminds the viewer under homage or thesilent partner under commission that shepaints for him. Dedication has a symbolicvalue in what concerns her personalisedstaging: I find myself here under your eyesfor your own privilege – the artist implies.The allegoric homage that commemoratesan event – mostly traumatizing – belongsto the 150 years old tradition of altarpiece(retablo). Kahlo’s amendment consists inputting aside the religiouscontextualization and getting inspirationfrom her own past, from her own panoplyof moments and impressions: „But forhaving a word to say, she had to displayher scars and personal mythology in frontof the audience“ (Souter 168). As painting

252Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov • Vol. 2 (51) - 2009 • Series IVis considered an offering materialisingappreciation or hope, it evokes the socalledex-votos that were given to culthomes in the past as a token of gratitudefor a personal favour or a blessing. Backthen the donee was God himself or a saint,whilst herein Kahlo’s god is the doctorwhose miraculous doings areacknowledged in spite of the subsequentbackfire 6 .Vehement intimacy between Frida andpainting produced a style that can bedefined as confessional, veracious andvisceral. On the canvas met her humours,bones and green wounds. By reason of thatmeeting it is almost impossible todenounce her creation as pseudo-art, asmiming or lack of authentic emotion: „Hersubjects are personal, staggering,grotesque, fantastic, humorous, surrealist,religious and always loaded with feeling“(Gariff 166). She painted herselfnotwithstanding solitude or specificfeminine dramas. Upon the whole paintingis not merely an act of courage, but amanifest narcissist phenomenon, ended uppredictably in nightmare, suicide attemptand unceasing absorption of pills.By restoring the question of origins andvaluing blood heritage under the meaningof fertility and renewal of life-death cycle,the artist is concentrated on theambivalence of self-birth and creationthrough abortion or double maternalfailure 7 : mother’s death thwarts her ownbirth along with all her possibledescendants. Blood is the significant of lifeloss and prostration of it into the work ofart; metaphorically it is the stranded trainswitch on the impeccable sheet of faith.Ambivalence persists at biological levelin Frida’s attitude towards the parentalfigures. Her mother was a bitter Catholic,cruel in her bigotries and very difficultstandoff and rejection materialized in herrelationship with the daughter. At once herartist-father developed a sustained andunderstanding complicity up to weaknesswith his little Frida, being at the same timeresponsible for early initiation inphotographic art. Obviously, he is to blamefor the future realism of her portrayalrepresentations. One would say aphotorealism avant la lettre (compromisedonly at symbolic level) which is going tocharacterize her works until the lastmoment. Just then medicamentary regimenassociated with the doddering hand shalldilute her technique 8 . Her closingobsession is given by Stalin’s figure,accompanied by Marxist mysticism inwhich the blood spread by the atomicbomb under the candidature of theAmerican power is purged by ideologicalcommitment. Militancy dressed inCommunist shirt with a red star adorningher chest (in one of Rivera’s mural ballads)is going to wrap up a new-born body,recovered, freed miraculously by crutches. 93.1. Meaning of DeathIn the cosmological vision of paintingaffiliated firmly to indigenous culture,death (la pelona) appears either as objectof derision, or as life’s step sister; itsdoings are post-mortem portraiture(difuntitos 10 ) or annual celebrations withextra amount of cheerfulness, sugar skullsand masks 11 .The skeleton, taking into account its rootin popular gravure, isn’t terrifying not evenwhen it overlaps the pending sleepingbody, therein a rather domestic double thana thrilling one. Either it appears underground, on the street as a habitant ofMexico, climbed on still life or mysticallyas a third eye, there is no difference in itsmeaning. Only when it is marked with thename Frida 12 (in a mess of amorphousfleshes – the last reminiscences of herancestral existence or fatidicexpectorations at the end of repeatedinfections), the skeleton represents the

Codreanu, F.: Dynamics of Blood in Frida Kahlo’s Creation 253piece de resistance from a pathogenmuseum. Hidden under a microbialblanket, the being diminished by prolongedsuffering and drained off on the canvas in adisparate ontogenesis, is brighten by alarge sun – saturated by blood, whichdoesn’t warm her, but it signs her sacrifice.Under the same sacrificial logic it alsoappears the outstretched body on amovable bed 13 , maimed by the action ofincisions, fleetingly sustained by thecracked earth and liable to completeswallowing. The dualist solar-lunarprinciple reduces once again to essence theimagine of back-turned being, dominatedby sun in righteous struggle with thefeminine appearance, militant in favour oflife and governed by moon. Blood leakingtowards death from the first half of thepainting appears written with demiurgicalletters in the second, the sole deathaccepted being the one concealed under themask of full life.Another form of death approved by theartistic vision is death abbreviated throughurgency and brutality to pure death, towhich intelligence and human coherencehaven’t gained access yet, exemplifiedeither in suicide 14 , or in murder 15 .All together death is poetry, performanceinspired from life and long drawn out inart, where the transit niche (the frame)bears the real maculated imprint of pureblood. The outrage is not visible in the actand its representation, but in the shock anddisorder pressed against the real: „“ 16 . The hygienic attitude of societyconfronted with blood materializes in thedesire to remove or destroy a paintingwhich takes to such sanguinary exposures.Another hypostasis of blood – abjectviolence – maintains artistic ambivalence:mediocre in intention, immaculate in act.3.2. Meaning of LifeIn Aztec belief blood is the mostprecious man’s possession, source of vitalenergy, and nurture for gods in theconstant regeneration of the cosmos:„Moreover, dignitaries and priests used tocut their legs, ears lob, and the tongue inorder to bring the Sun blood tribute“(Soustelle 151). The honorific function ofblood in Aztec society promotes heart onthe last hierarchic level of the sacred.Thereby it is considered the blossomingflower, the exclusive complement of thegod and dedicating it to him represents thesolemnest gesture of abnegation. Kahlo isgoing to privilege this symbol of bleedingheart 17 adapting it for the staging ofdisillusion, loss and complete seclusion.The disproportionate size of the heartthrown near tottering and disconnectedlegs (from the superior limbs) personifiesbeside organic devitalisation, the reevaluationof a meaningless life. In TheTwo Fridas (1939) in a post-maritalhalving, the hearts describe the beingdivided between the Mexican woman -loved and deceived to blood, and theOccidentalized woman - rejected and injeopardy of bleeding passively to death,kept artificially alive by a surgical clamp.The value of the double doesn’t simplyrefer to separation and marriage crisis, butit carries out the beginning of unresolveddialectic, namely which is the proper maskin facing and handling the real.The centripetal force that gives courseand legitimates the masks procession inKahlo’s painting is failed maternity 18 , theuterine blood which scatters not only thesheets but her entire artistic vision, alwaysturned towards this ambivalent feminineproduct. Its morbid quality derives fromthe reality of the accident, the congenitalmalformation, the blood evacuation out ofher body and the alarming laboratoryrecord. On another hand, its artistic

254Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov • Vol. 2 (51) - 2009 • Series IVquality, namely fertility and creationnascence, the flow of blood that binds thesix objects of sexuality and miscarriagebecomes accordingly the main colour forfilling and justifying her existence: „“ 19 . Total solitudeis emphasised, in addition, by thedimension of the hospital bed, by thedesolate nakedness and by the feeblebonds. That is the will exertion to keep inher palm (gathered in a sort of mortuarybouquet): a masculine foetus copied froman anatomical atlas, a snail, an orchid, asteam sterilizer, a bone model and asalmon pink anatomical model. Thewoman is held captive in an essentialrealism: „Frida Kahlo did not paint herreality as it was seen, but as she felt it. Theoutside world is thereby reduced to itsessentials, and a sequence of eventscondensed into a powerful climax“(Kettenmann 35).Although suspected of Surrealism in herartistic work, by means of conspiracy amongspiritualism, Freudian analysis and Marxism,her creative potency tends rather towards anunsophisticated surrealism invented for herown sake wherein charisma and humour arepowerful devices. The visualization of thebunch of ribbons from Henry Ford Hospitalas a bunch of cynical umbilical cords requiresslow-motion and microscopic fixation of theviewer’s eye separately on each element dueto the presence of the snail - symbol for theslow course of non-finalized abortion.A similar ocular vigilance requires fromits audience the work What the WaterGave Me (1938), popularized in theParisian art as a surrealist manifesto out ofvying with any other Mexican production.The female-artist approaches thefemininity of the water to summarize herexistential jungle in a mess of fauna andfloral elements, levels and floating ages,melting more paintings in a single fantasticone. Water refers to the mirror – the selfconsciousnessin which she plunges to givecolour and shape to the series of selfportraits,the acuteness of the bondidentity-rebirth or rediscovery; and to thewindow of childhood through which sheused to get free for joining the other Frida.The siphon from the bath restores almostinvisibly the blood dropped off the sickleg. Respecting the chronology, in TheBroken Column (1944) the body is alreadyon loan raiment, from which blood wascompletely evacuated, the only material ofsignification being the flesh kept in strapsand protecting delusively the grace andsuppleness of the Ionic column, broken inthree. Out of the Christian imaginarygrows the theme of martyrdom, the fleshstabbed by nails or arrows, dramaticexpression that shows her suffering underthe hope of resurrection.Pain relief is conjured through thepresence of a thorns crown that encirclesironically her neck 20 . So, it defeats anypossible drawing out of function. In pre-Columbian symbolism thorns are signs ofresurrection and rebirth, in Kahlo’ssymbolism renewed vitality verges on thelimits of endurance. The sole act ofidentifying is the one with thehummingbird that hangs from her necklaceas a reverse of the traditional meaning:mishap, hurt and death.Direct witness of consumption with thehighest level of symbolization, substitutefor her unborn child, signalizing excessivelove and concupiscence, the monkey 21 is aPagan agent towards whom Frida displaysthe blood bond. The red ribboncomplicatedly wound and unfurled in anumbilical manner secretes all theendeavours undergone in the maze ofrelationships, familial intersections and thefinal homage paid to primates’ order.

Codreanu, F.: Dynamics of Blood in Frida Kahlo’s Creation 2554. ConclusionThe martyrdom, drawn out in grotesquein The Wounded Table (1940) by signingup the allusion of the last supper, revealsthe way in which the artist chooses tocircumscribe the truth: by creating theimpression of a lie, of a dazzlingtheatricality. In this respect she possesses afarcical sense of comedy that isdeliberately infantile, especially in the wayit popularizes a Christian Frida, surroundedby Mexican apostles. Among them acarton Judah or a skeleton express theregression of Eucharistic sacrament thrownaway to the floor. For Frida that is a signfor embracing a continuous show state:„Frida created a galleria of images underthe shelter of a mask that had nevermoaned or cried“ (Souter 216). It iscurious how the weeping is just exterior, asymbolic add-on that belongs to the props,allowing her traits the same stretching andfirmness, without grimace. Under the hintor announcement of death, her creationoscillates permanently between mask andunmask, between self-concealment andself-exposure. The introspective seriousand frozen face from the series of selfportraits(with or without curtain) is placedunder the stigma of death, a never-endingprocessional expectance, deprived of thederisory rush of passing away: „She choseto be incinerated in the crematory, becauseafter so many years spent in a bed alongher short life, she wouldn’t want to spendan eternity on her back“ (Souter 244).Only cremation can prolong the allusion:death is present altogether and it staysalive by means of art.Due to her death once with the accident,with the debut of full age, Kahlo seeks inart the way or transition towards a differentlife. Her painting has restored the rhythmof lost breath and the forgotten flow ofblood. The fountain of blood that springsfrom her chest in one of her works 22clarifies specific adhesion to life, taken oncredit and discharged by painful interests,not so by losing her own body 23 , but byritual killing of life in her creation: theartist doesn’t transfigure inert matter,doesn’t give life, but she paintsindefatigably the poetry of losing it.References1. Burrus, Christina. Frida Kahlo.Bucureşti: Univers Publishing House,2007.2. Carr-Gomm, Sarah. The HutchinsonDictionary of Symbols in Art. HongKong: Helicon in association withDuncan Baird Publishers, 1995.3. Chilvers, Ian. Dictionary of Art &Artists. UK: Grange Books, 2005.4. Cios, Irina. Dicţionar de artă – Forme,tehnici, stiluri artistice (Dictionary ofArt – Forms, techniques, artisticstyles). Bucureşti: MeridianePublishing House, 1998.5. Frontisi, Claude. Istoria vizuală a artei(The Visual History of Art). Bucureşti:Rao Publishing House, 2007.6. Gariff, David. Cei mai influenţi pictoridin lume… şi artiştii pe care i-auinspirit (World's Most InfluentialPainters... and The Artists TheyInspired). Bucureşti: Rao PublishingHouse, 2008.7. Lehmann, Henri. Civilizaţiileprecolumbiene (Pre-ColombianCivilizations). Bucureşti: HumanitasPublishing House, 1995.8. Little, Stephen. Isme – Să înţelegemarta (Isms – Understanding Art).Bucureşti: Rao Publishing House,2006.9. Kettenmann, Andrea. Frida Kahlo.Pain and Passion. Germany: Taschen,2008.10. Ruhrberg, Karl. Art of the 20 thCentury. Vol. I Painting. Germany:Taschen, 1998.

256Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov • Vol. 2 (51) - 2009 • Series IV11. Souter, Gerry. Kahlo 1907-1954.Oradea: Aquila ´93 Publishing House,2008.1 Referring to the United States experience,unveiled in ”Self-portrait on the Borderlinebetween Mexico and the United States“ (1932),”My Dress Hangs There or New York“ (1933)2 ”Mira que si te quise, fué por el pelo,/ Ahoraque estás pelona, ya no te quiero“ from ”Selfportraitwith Cropped Hair“ (1940) inconnection to ”Diego and I“ (1949) – selfportraitin which her hair works as a noose3 ”My Grandparents, My Parents and I“ (1936)4 ”Frieda and Diego Rivera or Frieda Kahlo andDiego Rivera“ (1931) – wherein marital unionengages also a symbolic tutorship of the ArtistRivera for his future wife in the field of art5 ”The Wounded Deer or the Little Deer or Iam a Poor Little Deer“ (1946)6 There is to see ”Portrait of Dr. Leo Eloesser“(1931), ”Self-portrait with the Portrait of Dr.Farill or Self-portrait with Dr. Juan Farill“(1951) – the sole disclosure wherein pigment issubstituted by her own blood and the palettefunction is taken over by her heart7 ”My Birth or Birth“ (1932)8 For that is to see ”Self-portrait with Stalin orFrida and Stalin“ (1954)9 ”Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick“(1954)10 ”The Deceased Dimas Rosas at 3 Years Old“(1937)11 ”Girl with Death Mask“ (1938)12 ”Without Hope“ (1945)13 ”Tree of Hope, Keep Firm“ (1946)14 ”The Suicide of Dorothy Hale“ (1938-1939)15 ”A Few Little Pricks“ (1935)16 Recounted by Clare Boothe Luce, Dorothy’sbest friend that had commissioned the portraitfor her friend’s mother (Kettenmann 47)17 ”Memory or The Heart“ (1937)18 ”Henry Ford Hospital or The Flying Bed“(1932)19 Extras from the artist’s diary (Souter 246)20”Self-portrait dedicated to Dr. Eloesser“(1940) or ”Self-portrait with Necklace ofThorns“(1940)21 ”Self-portrait with Monkey“ (1940)22 ”The Love Embrace of the Universe, TheEarth (Mexico), Myself, Diego and SeñorXólotl“ (1949)23 „“, she wrote in her diary(Kettenmann 84)