The Dream 1940
In 1953, Frida held his first major exhibition in Mexico, at the age of 46, sick and in danger, lying in the hospital.
No one expected her to attend the exhibition, but Frida got in an ambulance and came to the exhibition.
Dressed in her favorite clothes, she was carried on a stretcher to a bed with four pillars and a paper skeleton dangling from the top.
A bed mirror shows Frida's haggard but cheerful face, and the exhibitors greet her, wrapping her in the middle and singing Mexican folk songs late into the night.
If it weren't for her haggard face and her weak body lying on the bed, you would hardly imagine that this was a person suffering from illness.
Romain Rolland said:
There is only one kind of heroism in the world, and that is to see the truth of life and still love life.Since physical torture is inevitable, then rejoice and enjoy life, from suffering, from sickness, from the guilt of life. Since suffering is inevitable, then endure it and transcend it.
Wounded fawn 1946
On July 6, 1907, in an old neighborhood southwest of Mexico City, Frida was born.
It was a rainy summer season, and the whole city was in a damp state.
Her family named her Frida, which means "peace" in German.
Frida's father, a taciturn man who always seemed to have a painful color on his body, never relaxed in his life.
Living alone in a place out of place, he wants to be accepted in Mexico City as a Mexican, but he has a strong German accent.
Frida's mother, was a beautiful woman, and many years later, Frida said
My eyes are like my father's, and my body is like my mother's.When Frida was three years old, the Mexican Revolution broke out, there were uprisings everywhere, there were wars, she grew up in the war, and in a hopelessly way, she began the first days of her life.
She remembered the whistling of bullets, the flyers of revolutionary songs flying in the sky, and the fact that she witnessed the revolutionary troops capture Mexico City.
The misfortunes brought about by the war accompanied Frida's life, and the war made Frida's family impoverished, and life became more and more difficult, just struggling to survive.
In this situation, Frida's mother complained incessantly, rebuked the servants, haggled with the sellers, and complained about the farmers who delivered milk.
In Frida's eyes, her mother only knew how to count money.
But the mother doesn't just make money, she educates her children in the traditional way, and tries to instill her own religious beliefs in the children's minds.
So, at a very young age, Frida learned to sew, embroider, cook, and clean.
She likes to keep her house clean.
This made her feel comfortable, even a little complacent.
The world may be chaotic, but people do their best to live comfortably.
Frida in a plaster cast.
When she was three or four years old, she entered kindergarten.
As a child, she sat in the classroom and listened to a teacher with a wig and a strange costume, holding a candle in one hand and an orange in the other, explaining the workings of the universe.
Little Frida listened very carefully and got carried away, so she didn't even know if she was wetting her pants.
She has a round face, a small dimple on her chin, and an aura in her eyes, only melancholy is written on her face, and her expression looks introverted.
At the age of six, Frida contracted polio and spent nine months in her room.
She finally understands that this world is not beautiful, and there is still pain.
After a little better, the doctor advised Frida to do physical exercises to strengthen the atrophied muscles in her right leg.
Following the advice of the doctors, her father tried to get Frida to play sports, she loved to climb trees, like a monkey, she also liked to play ball, and she also liked to paddle on the lake.
The illness also made Frida's right leg weak and weak, not as well developed as her left leg, and became lame, and people made fun of her, at first, she naively thought that other people's jokes would not hurt her, but then she understood:
Their jokes did hurt me, and they got worse and worse.In order to hide the defect in her right leg, she often wore three or four pairs of thick socks and several pairs of insoles.
However, her physical deficiencies did not keep her away from sports, she wore black bloomers, pedaled her bicycle, and shuttled freely like an elf.
On the road, in order to hide the defects of her legs and feet, she will use small jumps to hide her shortcomings, which look as smooth as a bird flying.
But she knew that she was a wounded bird, and no matter how she disguised it, she became different from others because of the injury.
So, she felt lonely.
Lonely!
People have to grow up with solitude.
To grow up is to walk into deeper loneliness.
Frida had low self-esteem due to her leg problems, so she studied harder, tried to find balance in other areas, and then told everyone, look, God has given me suffering, but I'm still better than most of you.
In 1922, she entered the best school in Mexico.
The school's motto is:
Freedom, order, progress.Freedom is the means, order is the fundamental, and progress is the end. Since the school had just started admitting girls, Frida was one of only 35 out of thousands of students.
At this time, Frida was 15 years old, slender and slender, but full of vitality.
She has thick black hair, flat bangs on her forehead, full and ** lips, and a charming dimple on her face.
She wears a pleated skirt, thick socks, a pair of boots on her feet, and a straw hat on her head.
She carried a men's schoolbag like a "tomboy", which contained a large number of things, such as textbooks, notebooks, paintbrushes, butterflies, dried flowers, and paints.
She is handsome, charming, doesn't care about other people's eyes, and is a maverick.
She hated the roughness and vulgarity of ordinary girls, just endless gossip and triviality.
In her opinion, this is the Mexican dehairing dog.
Rather than spend time with these people, Frida would rather hop in the school hallways or participate in cultural activities.
Reading, drawing, and debating with your friends.
Frida reads everything, she reads a lot, and she gets nourishment from books, like a sapling that goes to the ground to absorb nutrients.
She is lively, she calls boys brothers and girls sisters.
She loved to draw, and one day, she met Diego who was painting, and sat down quietly to watch him draw.
After watching it for a few hours, before leaving, I said goodnight.
At this time, Diego was already world-famous.
Diego was a fat man who liked to draw and chat at the same time, and Frida chatted with him.
Frida grew to fall in love with the painter, and she openly declared to her friends:
My goal is to have a baby for Diego, and one day I'll tell him what I think.Because of love, in her eyes, Diego's fat is a kind of gentleman's cuteness.
But at this time, Diego already had his own lover, and Frida sometimes called him old fat, wanting to stimulate her and make him notice her, she thought to herself
We'll see, big belly, now you don't pay any attention to me, but one day I'll be pregnant with your child.Diego got married, and Frida soon fell in love with another man, and this love was buried in her heart and only blossomed after many years.
Being young is good, and even love is young and full of hope.
Self-portrait wearing a necklace of thorns and a hummingbird 1940
In 1925, Frida was eighteen years old.
On September 17 of this year, the day after Mexico's Independence Day, a light rain had just stopped, and Frida and her boyfriend were sitting on the bus.
But the accident happened suddenly, and the tram crashed into the bus.
After the bus was hit, Frida was caught between the irons, and the broken handrail was inserted into her body.
In the car accident, her clothes were torn and she was naked, with a bucket of golden paint poured on her body.
Frida screamed in pain as the people pulled the irons out.
In the car accident, several people died on the spot, and several people also died after rescue efforts failed.
Frida was so badly injured that many people thought she wouldn't survive, and a month after the operation, everyone was still not sure that she would survive.
Frida said about the crash
I'm the worst one.She had broken her spine in three places, her collarbone and several ribs, as well as a severely broken foot and a ruptured pelvis.
The iron bar inserted into her body passed through her ** through the left side, and she said sadly
I lost my virginity.Faced with such a serious injury, doctors operated on her, but no one was confident that she would survive.
She lay motionless in the sky for a month, covered in plaster, as if she were in a sarcophagus.
Every night, she felt that death was so close:
At night, death came to my bedside and danced.But she still tries to live optimistically, she tells others
People have to endure this.Later, she even said:
I began to feel accustomed to suffering.Suffering did not defeat her, but made her see perseverance. Her recovery took a long time, a lot of money, and the family was short of money, so Frida went to her father's photo studio and did what she could.
What's even more painful is that after the car accident, her originally happy relationship is suddenly full of cracks, she herself is broken, and her feelings are also broken.
If suffering is a gift, most of those who can enjoy it are crushed before they can enjoy it.
Self-portrait with short hair, 1940
After the car accident, the illness seems to favor Frida in particular, and she is often ill and has been with it for the rest of her life.
She was always tired and had frequent pain in her spine and right leg.
A year after the crash, an orthopedic surgeon discovered that Frida's three vertebrae were out of place, and she had to wear a variety of different plaster casts to fix it, and even her right leg, which had a special device fitted to assist in walking.
This toss is a few months, she can't exercise, she can only paint as a pastime.
In the summer of 1926, when she could not leave the house due to illness, she picked up a paintbrush, adjusted the paint, and painted a self-portrait of herself.
Subsequently, she gave the painting to her lover.
On the back of the painting, she wrote a sentence:
Today is not over yet.She comforted herself :
I'm still young and have enough energy to do anything.Beginning to draw was the beginning of another life for her. Fate gave her suffering, not to let her die, but to let her endure, and Frida took it upon herself and tried to make it easy.
Skeletons are a symbol of horror and death, but Frida likes to wear cardboard skeletons on her costumes.
She played a joke of fate :
I teased and laughed at death, so he wouldn't let me get better.She paints, often drawing herself:
I paint myself because I'm always alone.She also said:
I'm the best subject I'm most familiar with.By drawing, she came alive again, reborn again. From suffering, she saw the energy of life, the sacredness and power of life.
She also saw that only by enduring can we overcome the suffering of life, suffering is the norm, and only God and art can suffer.
Two Frida 1939
In 1928, Diego reappeared in Frida's life.
At this time, Diego was forty-two years old and had just ended his original marriage.
One day, Frida goes to a party and meets Diego.
At that time, Diego was painting a mural in the corridor of the Ministry of Education, and she wanted to ask Diego for advice on painting.
Diego looked at Frida's painting and said to her:
I'm very interested in your paintings, especially that self-portrait.Subsequently, Diego offered to give Frida advice to help her grow.
He told her:
No matter how many difficulties you encounter, you must keep drawing.Similar souls are most likely to attract each other, and what is missing in this world is not the spark of love, but similar souls. Frida's frankness and vividness attracted him, and the relationship between the two grew closer.
Her boldness and mischievous made him even more happy.
The two had similar interests and walked down the street together, all the lights in the neighborhood were on, and he looked down and kissed her.
Diego is a unique painter and there are two things in his life that angered him the most, one was a waste of time and the other was ignorance.
He said that he would rather have many clever enemies than a stupid friend.
Diego said to Frida
You have a dog face.She shot back
Your face is like a frog.Frida focused on painting, she said
I want to paint murals.Diego told her:
It is essential to concentrate on the way you express yourself.He mentored her, but did not limit her, but allowed her to reach her full potential.
To truly love someone is not to make her what she likes, but to help her become what she likes.
The friend said to Frida:
Marry him. Frida's parents felt that Diego was too fat to go out to meet people, but Frida did not hesitate and married him.
On August 21, 1929, at the age of twenty-two, Frida married Diego, whom she borrowed a skirt, blouse and scarf.
The wedding was simple, only Frida's father was present, and he said to Diego
Don't forget that my daughter is a sick person and will have a hard time for the rest of her life, she is very smart, but not beautiful, please think about it, if you really want to marry her, I will approve it.When two people are together, it is a very simple thing, but the world is very complicated. The promise of the soul never requires a complicated ceremony, let alone an announcement to everyone.
After marriage, their lives were very simple, even poor.
The only thing in their bedroom was the bed, the furniture in the dining room, a long black table from a friend, and a yellow dining table from their mother.
The material is simple, but their days are steaming.
During Diego's time, he struggled to earn money by painting, and was often exhausted, so Frida took on the responsibility of taking care of him.
She was a patient herself, but she was willing to take care of him.
When he was sick, she carefully wrote down the doctor's instructions and told her husband again and again.
When he was creating, she also encouraged him spiritually and helped him.
To truly love someone is not to restrain her, but to achieve, to promote, and to make the other person a better version of themselves.
She brought lunch to Diego at noon and carried it in a basket covered with handkerchiefs and flowers, on which the words "I love you" were embroidered.
She was often away from home because she always went to Diego's place of work and watched him draw.
Once, he was asked:
How do you draw a dark horse white?He said:
I had to draw it according to Frida's intentions.Then, no matter what others said, he painted the horse white.
Frida had always wanted a child, but she was unable to have a child of her own due to severe trauma to her pelvis.
Once, she was three months pregnant and then had a miscarriage.
She said
We can't have a small child, and I'm extremely frustrated.So, she constantly distracted herself by doing housework and drawing.
But Diego loved her very much.
Sometimes he felt that he had neglected her, and he would bring a large bouquet of flowers and apologize to her.
He wrote to her, often ending with a big lip and saying that it represented thousands of kisses, and he always began by saying:
My child, I'll give you a million kisses.
My beautiful little girl.
Lovely Fisita, the life of my life.Every day, hearing Diego's footsteps coming home, Frida muttered happily:
Diego is back.As soon as Diego entered, he kissed her quickly and asked her:
How is my little child?She respected him and loved him. He loved her and loved her.
Diego in my heart 1943
In 1930, the Friedas traveled to the United States to begin another storied period.
Frida loved to draw, but she didn't feel like a painter and was even embarrassed to show her paintings to her friends.
Diego was her original reader.
is also the person who understands her best.
She takes her drawing work very seriously and spends most of her time studying, so she always feels that there is not enough time, she says
I don't have enough time here, I can only sell a few paintings.As fame grew, visits and invitations increased, Frida said
Socializing wears me out.But she soon said hopefully:
Will recover little by little and then do something you love.She goes in and out of high society, but she only has boredom in her heart:
I have some hatred for the rich people here because I see thousands of people living miserable lives.They live in different cities, with Diego always working with enthusiasm and Frida often feeling lonely.
She finally conceived Diego's child, but she always miscarried, and Frida was in agony, and she cried out:
It's better to be dead, I don't know why I still have to live like this!Five days later, Frida picked up a paintbrush and painted a self-portrait of herself, in which she was dressed in a kimono with a hairnet, her face slightly swollen from tears.
She wanted to see the child she had lost, she wanted to see what the child looked like, she wanted to read books about medicine, but the doctor wouldn't allow it, and finally Diego told the doctor
You're not dealing with an ordinary patient, she's reading books to make art.The doctor didn't give it, so Diego managed to get Frida medical books himself.
Leaving the hospital and returning home, Frida said to a friend:
There is no other way but to endure it.Her strong will finally overcame despair and discouragement.
Moses 1945
After the miscarriage, the pain turned into art, her husband Diego sighed
She began to create a series of masterpieces that had never been seen before in the history of creation.The paintings celebrate women's resilience in the face of reality, cruelty, and suffering.
The long is suffering, and the short is life.
The times were unpredictable, Diego was fired, his work was obscured and blocked, and they stood up for artistic freedom.
Frida was also involved in the dispute, and she was her husband's strongest supporter, and she used her disabled legs to run around for him.
However, at this time, Diego is entangled with another woman, and Frida has a physical problem, she feels paralyzed in her right leg, and can only lift it as much as possible.
She was alone at home, lonely as a dog.
She began to paint self-portraits of herself again, and when she was done, she felt bad about it, so she wrote a comment:
Absolutely bad, no, very ugly.Then disappointed, he threw the sketchpad on the ground and threw it in the trash, and the painting was picked up by a friend and became one of Frida's paintings that had been handed down.
Roots, 1943
In 1933, the couple returned to Mexico and moved into a new home, where Frida happily decorated her new home, but instead of mercy on her, God brought her great misery, and her sister robbed her of her husband.
Frida was in pain, and it was difficult to get out of it, but fate still said, I love you, so I hurt you.
She wants to forget everything and live a new life :
I could not continue to live in the shadow of sorrow.The pain made her nervous breakdown, and the only thing she could tell herself was to be strong and devote herself to artistic creation, which could make her feel better.
She tried to escape, but she couldn't forget Diego, she said
The pain I suffered made me finally understand that I love you more than anything else.The betrayal of her husband, the betrayal of her sister, turned Frida into an even more complicated woman.
From then on, she no longer wanted to be an accessory to her husband, she had to be herself, to be herself, she lived more and more presumptuously, homosexual, heterosexual, she did not refuse.
She shows her charm and attracts others.
She has also truly found her own artistic style, and her work has shone in exhibitions.
Many people feel that Frida is a surrealist writer, but she says:
I'm not, I never paint dreams, I paint my own reality.Self-portrait with loose hair 1947
Suffering is a series of trials one after another.
Frida's health has always been bad, her body has been recurring, and she is always suffering from illness.
Her spine and feet have been tormenting her.
The spine makes her stand and her feet walk, but they always rebel against her.
The doctor again said that she had syphilis and recommended that she undergo exchange transfusion**, and the surgeon said that her spine needed to be strengthened and recommended that she undergo surgery.
She couldn't move, she couldn't stand upright, and she had to rely on various instruments to help her paint.
Once, after an operation, a friend went to see her in the hospital and found Frida hanging from a steel ring, her feet just touching the ground, and she was drawing.
When she saw her friends coming in, she painted while telling jokes and funny stories.
Didn't complain, just endured, calmly endured
She had downplayed the pain she had suffered, but she had already suffered it.
She had been reading medical books and had consulted many doctors, and she wanted to know about her physical condition.
She painted many self-portraits of herself, but in the paintings, they were all broken herself, some without feet, some without heads, some cracked, and some bleeding.
These paintings, weeping silently.
However, these paintings are also an antidote to pain, and art is vast enough to occupy everything, including suffering.
The Wounded Table, 1940
In the spring of 1953, Frida had just undergone a bone transplant, and an exhibition of Frida's paintings was organized.
Because everyone felt that Frida would not live long, and honor should be given while she was alive, not when she was already dead.
When the exhibition opened, Frida's health was so bad that doctors forbade her to move, but she didn't want to miss such an important moment in her life, so she was carried to the exhibition.
Her arrival has also become a big event.
People sang around her:
I'm drunk tonight.
My beloved child.
Tomorrow is another day.
You will find me all right.On this day, she was very comfortable, but her body made her tired.
The exhibition was a great success, and some people commented:
It is very difficult to separate her life from her art, and her paintings are her autobiography.
Her health was getting worse and worse, but she still struggled to sit in her chair and paint, she said
I'm not a patient.
I'm broken.
But as long as I can paint, I'm willing to live like this.Suffering is life, painting is salvation, and those sufferings that did not defeat her allowed her soul to grow.
Self-portrait of Mexico on the border with the United States, 1932
In August 1953, Frida's doctors decided to amputate Frida's right leg in order to relieve her pain.
When the doctor saw the leg, he was almost silent, the leg was atrophied and shockingly disabled, and even two toes were gone.
Frida said: Do you want to cut it off?
The doctor said yes, the whole leg would have to be cut off.
Frida shouted hoarsely
No. She looked helplessly at her friend, who said:
Your leg has tortured you enough, it can't walk anymore and now has good prosthetics.Frida agreed, and she said sadly:
Let's cut it off.Only Diego understands that this will kill Frida and leaves the hospital room, Diego tells others:
She's going to die, and this operation is going to kill her.Diego understood her, she wrote:
For me, it's enough to have wings. Let them cut it off, and I'll fly away.
If I have wings, what do I need legs for?Frida is in a bad state, her psychiatrist said
Don't force her to do anything, she doesn't want to live, and we force her to live.The amputation was a brutal blow that even crushed her directly, and she even tried to commit suicide.
She said
I confess my sins as much as my pain.For a long time after the operation, Frida did not paint until the spring of 1954, when she forced herself to enter the studio again and tie herself to a wheelchair with a belt.
She insisted on painting, but she couldn't sit still, so she lay on the bed and continued to paint.
She dedicated herself to her art.
In June 1954, she said she wanted to take a closer look at the flowers and trees, and she saw the free pigeons.
When the summer rain fell, she watched the light and shadow of the trees dancing on the leaves, the branches swaying in the wind.
She also watched as the raindrops hit the roof and run down the eaves.
It's like seeing life eventually flow into the sea, not to die, but to go home.
On July 13, 1954, just days after her birthday, Frida died.
Self-portrait dedicated to Trotsky 1937
Frida is snarky and impulsive.
However, many people always want to cry when they think of her, and she tried to live the fierce joy of living in that life full of tragedy.
During Frida's life, at least thirty-two surgeries, mostly on the spine and right leg, and the various corsets she wore that held her spine in place, nearly thirty, on which she lived.
She said
I keep a record of the surgeries I did.Despite the sadness and pain in her heart, she always shows off her beautiful feathers like a peacock.
She walked towards painting, just to paint herself, she said:
I only know that painting is a need of mine, and I always paint those things that pass through my mind without any other considerations.So, she painted herself bleeding, crying, and broken, and she transformed her pain into art, reconciled it with her rich imagination, blended it into beautiful colors, spread it on the drawing board, and got the salvation of her soul from it. This is her, a painful life.
But she shows us that the powerful energy of life and the incomparable endurance.
Text|Not interesting soul & plain shoes.