"The Converging Polarities of Frida Kahlo as Tinku”
Overview
A paper that explores ancient Andean cultural roots (which influenced Mesoamerican indigenous culture) as manifest in Frida Kahlo’s life perspective which models the ancient Andean notion of tinku (when two entities merge, such as two streams meeting to form a river). The author characterizes the Mexican identity as a tinku (from the 15th century Spanish influence merging with the indigenous culture to transmute into a new alchemical entity, the Mexican, rather than merely a hybridization). The paper seeks out patterns in Frida’s life and work that reveal ancient heritage, as well as ancestral trauma, with a focus on identifying tinku. Diego Rivera is also discussed to some degree, as their two lives were so intertwined. The paper identifies tinku in Diego’s work, as well, and asserts that the notion of Gesamtkunstwerk is also an echo pattern of the ancient Andean notion of tinku.
Explores Latine identity construct as a "tinku" (ancient Andean term), using Frida Kahlo as a model.
“Searingly Alive/Ever-present Death: The Converging Polarities of Frida Kahlo as Tinku”
by Mahara T. Sinclaire
There are many ideas about the influences and nature of Frida Kahlo’s work. Andre Breton linked her art practice to Surrealism; however, her work was grounded in her real-life experience, so the Surrealist label does not quite suit. As Andrea Kettenmann points out, “It is more important for the artist [Frida] to reproduce her emotional state in a distillation of the reality she had experienced...” 1 Given her emphasis on expressing her raw emotional reality, one can identify parallels to van Gogh’s self-portraits and his legacy of candid communication of his internal experience. Diego Rivera on Frida’s art states, “Frida is the only example in the history of art of an artist who tore open her chest and heart to reveal the biological truth of her feelings.” 2 The vulnerability and sincerity that van Gogh and Kahlo share with the world may well explain their powerful resonance within the global community, capturing the hearts of humanity. Curator Gregory O’Brien accurately notes that Kahlo was “inspired by the primitivism of Rousseau and Gauguin, and most importantly by Mexican folk art and pre-Hispanic culture.” 3 While these assessments contribute significantly to our understanding, I will explore the idea that Frida’s work encompasses many impulses reminiscent of the ancient indigenous cultures of Latin America, most significantly the ancient Andean perspective. In identifying the ancestral heritage to which she was so deeply connected, I will also address the more immediate ancestral traumas that may have colored her life experience.
Kahlo’s work embraces essence (symbol) over appearance (realism) which is a core trait of ancient Andean art. While she employs symbols on one hand to communicate akin to the popular votive practice of her day, (for example, in Time Flies she literally uses the symbols of a clock and an airplane as metaphors), in other later works these symbols are often oblique, conveying sensation rather than orchestrating comprehension. Her work flirts with illegibility and incomprehensibility in that the whole congers more than what the individual elements connote. The viewer, when trying to decode the symbols, often finds some of the elements to be mysterious and inexplicable. “Kahlo’s singular portrait style cuts straight to the heart of deeply felt passions and sorrows. Juxtaposing the familiar with the strange, marrying naturalistic depiction with bizarre symbolism Kahlo is able to convince us of the truthfulness to her inner life shown in her paintings” 4, states editor Anthony White in his astute assessment of Kahlo’s oeuvre.
Adolfo Best Maugard ‘s 1923 book Drawing Method: Tradition, Resurgence, and Evolution of Mexican Art describes Mexican art as stylized using non-perspective as its indigenous component in conjunction with details such as tied-back curtain cords indicating a colonial adaptation typical of 19th century portrait painting. Frida’s work is grounded in the Mexican retablo painting tradition while simultaneously embodying Western art’s visual expression of Saint Sebastian and the Christ figure’s suffering through pain and death as filtered through her own tortured life story to spiritually transcend the trials of the physical plane. “Kahlo was largely concerned to record accurately her physical and psychological situation in a way that would avoid pity… but instead ask for identification and empathy.” 5 This hybridization is characteristic in the original Mexican voice, and Frida used both these visual strategies in her work. Mexicanism (‘mexicanidad’) is not merely a Spanish/ Indigenous hybrid, but rather the evolution of that hybridization into a newly-birthed, original, neo-indigenous, cultural identity. Kahlo psychologically creates a distinction between contemporary Spain (European culture) and the 15th century Spanish infusion of culture (Hispanic influence) that intermingled with the indigenous culture at that point in time. Therefore, “a Mestiza, a ‘true’ Mexican woman” 6 is the embodiment of that marriage. In ancient Latin American culture, this marriage can best be understood as a ‘tinku’, in which the two components (the 15th century Spanish infusion of culture meeting the indigenous culture of that time) converge to make a third culture. This alchemy constitutes the ‘mestizo’. To reiterate, the mestizo is not merely a hybrid, but rather an alchemical transformation into a new entity, unique unto itself.
Kahlo “favored an independent Mexican culture with its Pre-Columbian and Hispanic roots.” 7 She felt that the “pre-Hispanic Indians were her prime-movers, her progenitors” 8 In her self-portraits, she “shares the limelight with the flora and fauna of Mexico, with cacti, plants of the primeval forest, volcanic rock, parrots, deer, monkeys and Itzcuintli dogs” 9 In her powerful1939 painting The Two Fridas, she indicates her shared identity as two halves: European dress (female, societal, the portion rejected by Diego) and the Tehuana Mexican dress that Diego favored (seated in a more masculine posture), representing her indigenous side as a celebration of the natural world. These two halves conjoin to alchemize the Mestizo. The two halves in the emblem of Mexico include the eagle (representing Quetzalcoatl, the domain of the sky, the essence of transcendental freedom) and the serpent (representing Tezcatlipoca, “the sexual energy of the grounded ‘self’’10 “Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca are mirror images of the unconscious mind. One represents the luminous intellect, the other, the black shadow, the formless chaos of the emotions.” 11 Victor Zamudio-Taylor observes that, “In the double self-portrait, the first of its kind ever, the artist depicts two fundamental sides of her persona that are intrinsic to the mestizo condition, namely plural or polyphonic subjectivities in a permanent state of flux, contradiction, and paradox.” 12 He further states that “Contradictions are allowed to remain as such, resting unresolved in a discursive space…[of] mestizaje –understood as impurity, hybridism, and mixture—which creates a ‘third space’” 13 His statement aligns with the notion of tinku. Frida articulates a fluid, ambiguous, everchanging present that cannot be labeled or pinned down (not an either/or but an either/and), so we have a duality and a unity co-expressing. As Diego describes it, “... The Two Fridas are at once the same person and two different people.” 14 Duality and unity coexist in an uncontradictory, mutually-validating, complexly-divergent yet unified field. Frida Kahlo articulated dynamic contrasts of steeled endurance with inner turmoil, evincing a control/chaos dichotomy. Diego further remarked, “Kahlo’s art is “a combination of the collective and the individual.” 15 She is Mexico. She is herself. These two components unite, transcending her identity into an icon, her great legacy.
Similarly, Diego shared this tinku-exemplifying idea of two merging into one to create something new. Diego’s political dream was to establish a ‘common citizenship’ for everybody in the Americas…a union of the ancient traditions of the South and the industrial activity of the north.” 16 Additionally, Diego’s art practice conjoins plastic art aspects (composition, formal issues, structural organization) with his representational narrative content resulting in truly affecting art of great magnitude (tinku). After Diego’s return from Europe where he was indoctrinated into Cubism, Italian Renaissance frescos, and modernism, he went with Vasconcelos to the Yucatan to immerse himself in his Mexican cultural heritage. Seeing the Mayan pyramids, “Rivera stood in awe inside the precious inner chamber of the Temple of the Tigers still ablaze with 12th century frescos. Those best preserved combine complex geometric planning with lively anecodic storytelling.” 17 In the Mayan culture, we see the melding of the plastic arts (compositional and structural strategies) working in conjunction with subject matter (meaningful content conveying a narrative), blending together into a total art experience, a tinku. The Detroit Industry murals created for the Detroit Institute of Arts commission, “led Rivera to develop a very sophisticated mural style that combined the best of cubist abstraction with his poetic images of men and machines.” 18 Interestingly, one can recognize a parallel between Wagner’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk characterized by a “seamless melding of a variety of art forms” 19 with the ancient peoples of Latin America’s notion of the tinku. Kandinsky further elucidates the definition of Gesamtkunstwerk as the bringing together of “all the arts to synesthesia” 20, as articulated in his 1910 Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Rivera saw his Detroit Industry murals as “a wonderful symphony.” 21 One can recognize the understanding of the magical transmutation that occurs in the ancient ‘tinku’ echoed in the later European concept of Gesamtkunstwerk.
The polar relationship between life and death was another major theme that threaded through Kahlo’s oeuvre. Frida’s 1931 portrait of Luther Burbank (a ground-breaking grafter and horticulturalist) conceptualized him as a hybridization in which his corpse feeds the tree which then feeds him as a newly regenerating tree suggesting reciprocity. By giving back to the earth and connecting to nature, he feeds himself. To feed the earth is to feed oneself. The painting also conveys her idea of coexistent life/death polarity as she saw herself as dying inside while emphatically and defiantly alive in the world. She asserts that death feeds life. It is not a contradictory adversary but a cooperative partner toward birthing the new. This “life death duality and the fertilization of life by death...” 22 implies the rich life force inherent in death, and this mutually constructive and reciprocal relationship ignites a tinku. Frida’s Portrait of Luther Burbank conveys her respect for Burbank’s life- affirming hybrid creations, “which seemed to defy death, a subject of particular interest to her.” 23 Victor Zamudio-Taylor points out that in Portrait of Luther Burbank “…his legs, transformed into a tree trunk, sprout roots that appear to grow from his own corpse. The duality of life and death as complementary and contradictory facts of human existence is highlighted, as in the dynamic relationship between nature and culture as inseparable entities.” 24 Zamudio-Taylor is noticing the polarities of life/death and nature/culture, which Frida illustrates as forming a tinku, a new entity.
This theme of the life/death polarity is evident in Kahlo’s 1932 My Birth, painted shortly after her miscarriage in New York and the death of her mother. The birth-giving figure represents her mother as well as herself, and the birthed figure represents both herself and the recent miscarriage, linking life and death as a paradoxical and perpetual cycle of sorrow. Both figures are depicted as ambiguously dead and alive (still-born/still-alive), conveying her deep grief.
A Few Small Nips from 1935 harnesses a news item in which a jealous drunken man in a fit of rage stabbed his girlfriend twenty times saying “it was just a few nips”. In Frida’s personal life at the time, she learned that Diego had been having a months-long affair with her younger sister Cristina. Devastated, she felt “murdered by life.” 25 Kahlo experienced significant physical pain throughout her life (it was killing her) and significant emotional pain with Diego’s continual affairs (it was killing her psychologically); therefore, life and death merged into a somewhat synonymous experience.
This simultaneous duality (life and death as separate) and conflation (life/death as a merged unity) parallels the nature of Frida and Diego’s connection. They were distinct individuals who had great respect for each other’s work and values, while at the same time they functioned as one entity like the fusion of two cells merging into one. As a last will request, Diego had left instructions that his ashes be mixed with Frida’s ashes in the urn at the Blue House. This request was not honored, and his body was instead interred in the Rotunda of illustrious Men in the Dolores Cemetery, per instructions of the Mexican President.
Even in Kahlo’s early self-portrait Time Flies, the attention to death is apparent. The center bead on the pre-Hispanic necklace has two crossed bands which “are associated with Mictlantecutli, the Aztec god of death.” 26
Preoccupied with an acute awareness of death, Frida created still lifes toward the end of her life that evoke the presence of death. Historically, the still life genre was initiated after the Black Plague’s ravaging of human life when people valued the tangible aspects of real life over an uncertain spiritual afterlife. Still life painting “depicted death at the heart of life.”27 A still life ‘stops time’, breaking the cycle of death and temporarily ends life’s processes, functioning as a gap, a suspended pause. “’I paint flowers so they will not die’ she confided to her last lover, Josep Bartoli.” 28 Bartoli was a Spanish refugee that Frida met through her sister Cristina toward the end of her life. “Reflecting on Kahlo’s morbid preoccupation with death, Bartoli admitted that ‘all her life was a suicide; she was born suicidal.’” 29 Significantly, Frida’s maternal grandmother was traumatized as a young girl by witnessing her first boyfriend commit suicide right in front of her. This may have reverberated in to Frida’s life perspective through ancestral trauma transmission. Frida herself attempted suicide on a few occasions and some feel that her death was in fact a suicide.
Looking further at ancestral trauma embedded in Frida’s familial heritage, her father Wilhelm (Guillermo) Kahlo, at age 18, while a student at the University of Nuremberg in his homeland Germany “sustained brain injuries in a fall, and began to suffer epileptic seizures” 30 that would plague him for the rest of his life. In a parallel pattern of ancestral trauma transmittal, Frida at age 17 sustained serious bodily injuries in the trolley/bus collision that would plague her with pain for the rest of her life.
At two months pregnant in Detroit, contemplating whether to carry or abort, Frida writes to Dr. Loesser “… with this heredity in my blood I do not think the child could come out very healthy.” 31 Author Herrera speculates that Frida refers to her father’s epilepsy here. However, upon her third incident of pregnancy, Dr. Zollinger “ordered an abortion after 3 months because of the ‘infantilism of Frida’s ovaries’. Both Frida’s older sisters also had ‘insufficient ovaries’; neither bore children (Adrianna had 3 miscarriages) and both eventually had their ovaries removed because of cysts”. 32 There were lineage factors that likely contributed to Frida’s inability to bear children.
As a young child of age 6, Frida had “an accident and hit her right foot against a tree stump. This caused a slight deformation of her foot, which turned outward. Several doctors diagnosed the problem as polio. Others said Frida had a ‘white tumor’. The treatment consisted of sun baths and calcium baths.” 33 Robin Richmond postulates that Frida’s polio state of being the ‘invalid’ imprinted in her a psychological self-image of being ‘in-valid’ resulting in an aggravated need to be seen and validated. The name-calling she endured from the other children calling her “Frida, peg-leg!” etched in her a defiant defense and seemed to cement the defect of her right foot as a central aspect of her self-image. Over the course of her life, she had 32 operations to rectify her spinal injuries from the trolley/bus accident at age18 (other potential causes include scoliosis or “‘spina bifida’, a congenital malformation that occurs when the lower spine does not close during fetal development that sometimes leads to progressive trophic ulcers on the legs and feet.” )34 Despite these numerous spinal surgeries, Frida was still able to sustain her lust for life. It was the amputation of her right leg that extinguished her will to live.
In examining why Kahlo characterized herself as a wounded deer in her 1946 The Little Deer, it is pertinent to note that, “In Aztec belief, the deer was the sign of the right foot.” 35As her health troubles ostensibly initiated with her polio-inflicted right foot, choosing to cast herself as a deer does indeed seem to reference the Aztec Codex Vaticanus A which indicates that the head of a deer is the symbol for a man’s right foot. As she specifically has her face stand-in for the head of the deer, this would indicate the degree to which her injured right foot dominated her self-identity. Another possible impetus for characterizing herself as a deer is that “Tlaloc was the god of the mazatl (deer), the animal that ruled her birthdate.” 36
In addition to Aztec references in Kahlo’s work, there are numerous Catholic elements as well, due to her religious upbringing’s Spanish roots. Frida’s 1937 painting Memory casts her as a martyr akin to Saint Teresa of Avila whose heart was pierced by the arrow of Divine Love. One of Frida’s Catholic names was Carmen. Since Saint Teresa founded the Order of the Discalced Carmelites, Frida would have known Teresa’s transverberation story. Teresa’s Carmelites walked barefoot causing significant pain in their feet, with which Frida could identify, enduring the pain of her own right foot. Other similarities include that both Frida and Saint Teresa, when young girls, were “both ill and nearly died, after which their fathers were their primary caregivers.”37
“In the mid-1940s, Frida’s health declined. She lost weight and had fainting spells.” 38 “There has been quite a lot of speculation about whether Kahlo’s physical suffering and the many operations she endured were not basically a means of tying her husband [Diego] closer to her. Her favorite physician, Dr. Eloesser even went so far as to express the opinion that many of the operations were unnecessary.” 39 Mimicking her mother’s modeled behavior of fainting spells (diagnosed as ‘hysterical hypochondria’) to redirect focus from her husband Guillermo’s epileptic seizures, “… many of her [Frida’s] operations were elective and occurred when she felt a new love in Diego’s life.” 40
Frida’s mother, ill after Frida’s birth and possibly suffering post-partum depression, hired an indigenous woman to be Frida’s wet nurse. The lack of bonding with the mother is considered to have resulted in Frida’s need for attention. An interesting parallel in Diego’s early life: his parents, for fear he might die like his twin brother who had died at 18 months (the mother having had three previous miscarriages already), placed Diego in the care of an Indian nurse who lived in the country. He remained with his nurse for two years (ages 2-4). It seems that both Frida and Diego did not bond with their mothers as infants, which may have contributed to an exacerbated need for attention and validation.
Having addressed some of the more immediate ancestral trauma patterns that colored Frida’s life experience, I will return to the examination of the overarching polarities that Frida conflated, inventing new modes of expression, with attention to male/female binaries, as well as mother/son and father/daughter dynamics that played out in her life and love.
Regarding Frida’s relationship with her father, “She was always at the ready to come to his aid if he suffered an epileptic seizure. She would spring into action, making sure he was alright while guarding his [camera] equipment to prevent its theft.” 41 In this sense, she is mothering her father.
“Guillermo Kahlo adored his fifth child [Frieda] and considered her the most intelligent of his daughters and hence, the one most like him! He treated her like the son he never had…”42 This attitude by the father cultivates Frida’s embrace and expression of her masculine side from an early age. “She was certainly her father’s favourite daughter… Frida in turn lavished affection on him, returning his love with what can only be termed veneration” 43 She repeated this relational pattern with her husband, venerating Diego, as well. After Frida’s childhood polio affliction, her father prescribed sports to strengthen her frail right leg. Frida’s post-polio sports included: soccer, boxing, wrestling, and swimming. Frida stated “’My toys were those of a boy: skates, bicycles’. She liked to climb trees, row on the lakes of Chapultepec Park, and play ball.” 44
Her attire decisions (e.g., wearing her father’s three-piece suit for a family photo) evinced her experimentation with transvestitism, “asserting her right to be different and unconventional.” 45 In this light, her Tehuana costume can be understood as a form of drag as she exercised the power of masquerade to craft a unique presence. Her defiant embrace of being different, steeled after the relentless taunting to which she was subjected as a young child served as a shield to mitigate vulnerability.
In her self-portraits, Frida emphasizes her mustache and unibrow while donning the traditional Tehuana female dress. She highlights her masculinity while celebrating her femininity in such a way that the two poles do not contradict one another but rather coalesce into a third male/female transmutation, birthing a new form of identity (tinku). Frida models a persona that is both male and a female, conflating the polarity and opening new possibilities for expression and behavior. Frida’s face in her self-portraits is androgenous. “To judge from her more obvious feminine prettiness in photographs, it is clear that [in her paintings] she exaggerated her mustache and gave her features a steely cast.”46
Diego was 21 years older than Frida. When they married, she was 22 and he was 43, (but she told him she was only 19, so he would have thought he was 24 years older than her). Their relationship had a father/daughter dynamic, especially at the start. Frida would sign her love letters “your little girl [nina] Frida.” 47 But there was also a mother/son dynamic in their relationship. “He didn’t want any more children [He had children from other relationships]: He wanted to be the only child in the relationship…[He] needed all the attention Frida could spare him. In some ways, she seemed to be marrying a father figure…He called her his ‘little Fisita, my beautiful little girl’, but in other ways, he was an utter baby.” 48 “Just as she loved his [Diego’s] vulnerability and his womanly breasts, he loved her grit and her ‘Zapata’ mustache.” 49 “There was always a definite androgenous aspect to both Frida and Diego.” 50 It is evident that they had a very fluid and complex role-playing dynamic.
In Kahlo’s 1944 Diego and Frida 1929-1944, she presents a composite portrait that is half her face/ half Diego’s face, coalescing them into one entity. Here, Frida combines the energy of Diego with her own, creating an ‘ayni’ (union). These two interdependent though unequal halves can be understood in the late Incan term ‘karihuarmi’, indicating a male/female complementarity. This state of reciprocity provides an apt description of the underlying dynamic of their deep connection.
There are similarities in Frida’s communications with Alejandro Gomez Arias (her first boyfriend) and Diego. When Alejandro ended up falling in love with Frida’s friend Esparanza Ordonez, Frida plead to Alejandro, “Deep down, you understand me, you know I adore you! That you are not only a thing that is mine, but you are me myself!” 51 She composited herself with Diego in this same way, seeing herself unified with him into one entity. In a statement regarding her relationship to Diego, Frida reflected that, “within my difficult and obscure role of ally of an extraordinary being [Diego], …I have the reward of equilibrium.” 52 She needed his presence for her own balance.
In her1949 The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego, and Senor Xolotl, Frida paints an image with Diego as a baby in her arms. There are three levels of female characters in the piece: an overarching Universal Goddess with polarities of black/white, night/day, sun/moon; Mother Earth representing the natural world; and Frida, all holding and nurturing the baby Diego, infusing him with the energy of creation (‘camay’). His activated third eye signifies his male genius/ wisdom and the fire ball in his hand signifies his creative power. “With this piece, Frida again explores themes of duality and the connectedness of all living things” 53 Additionally, the piece can be understood to articulate quick time (human time, as depicted in the Frida and Diego figures) and cosmic time (as depicted in the Universal Goddess) occurring simultaneously, not contradicting each other, but co-existent. The persistent extreme pain that marked Frida’s life experience and Diego’s extreme strain from long hours painting murals (sometimes 16-hour days), pushed their human consciousness into a vivid awareness of the present moment, grounding them into the spirit-world experience akin to the indigenous Latin American life experience of arduous treks through the Andes which catalyzed their cultural values and aspirations. This embrace of intense endurance to evoke a spiritual state can be traced back to the black and white polarity signifying duality in the stone portal design of the New Temple at Chavin de Huantar in the ancient Andean culture, a culture which influenced and permeated the indigenous Mesoamerican cultures.
In The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico) Myself, Diego, and Senor Xolotl, Frida offers a core message about love as the fundamental driving force of the Universe and celebrates the polarities that comprise this oneness:
- Light/ dark
- Day/ night
- Aztec sun god/ Aztec moon god 54
- Male/ female
- Frida/ Diego
- earth plane (represented by earth goddess Cihuacoatl)/ underworld (represented by Senor Xolotl)
- life/ death
- positive/ negative
- figure of universe as a biracial polarity
- physical (bodily experience)/ spiritual (intuitive, feeling experience)
These polarities parallel those of Mexicanism (an inheritance of Hispanic culture and Indigenous roots). Kahlo maps duality as a route to unity. Duality as a condition of oneness, not a contradiction to oneness. Battling forces as a prerequisite for equilibrium which exemplifies the paradoxical nature of life.
Frida agreed with Octavio Paz who observed that “the traditional Mexican attitude toward time is a passionate feeling of connection with the past. Mexico is a land of super-imposed pasts. [Mexico City atop Tenochtitlan which was built like the Toltec’s Tula, which was built like Teotihuacan] It’s not something known but something lived.” 55 The idea of the past not dying, but echoing in the present, in a state of perpetual rebirth, accumulating wisdom as a genetic strand of the cosmos. We are libraries of our indigenous memories which are rekindled when we come into presence with our essence, our core soul nature.
Rodriguez Prampolini argues that Mexican artists “cling to the real…The Mexican has a magic sense of life and an animistic perception of concrete reality…There is no opposition between subject and object, between conscious and subconscious, between the symbol and the thing symbolized.” 56 Kahlo’s work certainly exemplifies this idea.
A diary entry by Frida in 1947 musing on the nature of her union with Diego states, “I am the embryo, the germ, the first cell that—in potency—engendered him—I am him from the most primitive and most ancient cells, which with ‘time’ became him.”57 Frida had a pantheistic view of life ‘in which ‘everything moves according to only one law—life. No one is apart from anyone. No one fights for himself. All is all and one. Anguish and pain, pleasure and death are nothing but a process in order to exist.’” 58 Frida and Diego both envisioned the world as a continuum and saw themselves as connected to a “microcosm/macrocosm dialectic.” 59
Kahlo’s diary entry in 1950 reflects this cosmic perspective: “No one [person is] more than a functioning or a part of the total function…We direct ourselves toward our own selves through millions of beings—stones—bird creatures—star beings—microbe beings—fountain beings to ourselves… We have always been hate-love-mother-child-plant-earth-light-lightning-etc.-world giver of worlds—universes and universal cells.” 60 Reflecting on Frida’s legacy, artist Lesley Dill commented on “The irrationality of her imagery—it’s as big as the world because it encompasses [everything] from the molecule to death.” 61
Viva la Vida is considered to be Frida’s last painting. At the brink of her own death, she celebrated the experience of life. Kahlo endeavored to integrate the duality of her lifelong partnership with death’s shadow and her fiercely vibrant alegria for the earthly pleasures of life. Following Frida’s blueprint, as our human collective integrates duality consciousness with unity consciousness, we manifest tinku. Viva la Vida!
Dedicated to Profe Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, Ph.D.
Works Cited
- p. 35 Kettenmann, Andrea, Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and Passion, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2004.
- p. 84 Richmond, Robin, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Pomegranite Artbooks, San Francisco, 1994.
- p. 10 Gelman, Jacques and Natasha, Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism, National Gallery of Australia, 2001.
- p. 25 Gelman, Jacques and Natasha, Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism, National Gallery of Australia, 2001.
- p. 16 Gelman, Jacques and Natasha, Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism, National Gallery of Australia, 2001.
- p. 26 Kettenmann, Andrea, Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and Passion, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2004.
- p. 82 Kettenmann, Andrea, Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and Passion, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2004.
- p. 26 Richmond, Robin, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Pomegranite Artbooks, San Francisco, 1994.
- p. 27 Kettenmann, Andrea, Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and Passion, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2004.
- p. 16 Richmond, Robin, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Pomegranite Artbooks, San Francisco, 1994.
- p. 35 Richmond, Robin, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Pomegranite Artbooks, San Francisco, 1994.
- p. 33 Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
- p. 17 Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
- p. 33 Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
- p. 101 Rosenthal, Mark, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015.
- p. 296 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 189 Rosenthal, Mark, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015.
- p. 193 Rosenthal, Mark, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015.
- p. 243 Rosenthal, Mark, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015.
- p. 238 Rosenthal, Mark, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015.
- p. 238 Rosenthal, Mark, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015.
- p. 123 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 29 Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
- p. 32 Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
- p. 99 Barbezat, Suzanne, Frida Kahlo at Home, Francis Lincoln Limited, London, 2016.
- p. 16 Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
- p. 12 Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
- p. 11 Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
- p. 11 Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
- p. 5 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 138 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983 .
- p. 463 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 450 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 37 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1991.
- p. 190 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1991.
- p. 113 Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
- p. 154 Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
- p. 180 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1991.
- p. 78 Alcantara, Isabel and Sandra Egnolff, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Prestel, Munich, 1999.
- p. 86 Richmond, Robin, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Pomegranite Artbooks, San Francisco, 1994.
- p. 23 Barbezat, Suzanne, Frida Kahlo at Home, Francis Lincoln Limited, London, 2016.
- p. 11 Hooks, Margaret, Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon, Artes Graficas Palermo, Madrid, Spain, 2002.
- p. 9 Alcantara, Isabel and Sandra Egnolff, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Prestel, Munich, 1999.
- p. 15 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 41 Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
- p. 138 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1991.
- p. 55 Kettenmann, Andrea, Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and Passion, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2004.
- p. 87 Richmond, Robin, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Pomegranite Artbooks, San Francisco, 1994.
- p. 154 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1991.
- p. 370 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 80 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 366 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 150 Barbezat, Suzanne, Frida Kahlo at Home, Francis Lincoln Limited, London, 2016.
- p. 72 Kettenmann, Andrea, Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and Passion, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2004.
- p. 469 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 475 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 375 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 328 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 484 Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
- p. 77 Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
- p. 76 Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
Bibliography Page
Alcantara, Isabel and Sandra Egnolff, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Prestel, Munich, 1999.
Barbezat, Suzanne, Frida Kahlo at Home, Francis Lincoln Limited, London, 2016.
Carpenter, Elizabeth, Frida Kahlo, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2007.
Gelman, Jacques and Natasha, Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism, National Gallery of Australia, 2001.
Grimberg, Salomon, Frida Kahlo: The Still Lifes, Merrill, London, 2008.
Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, Harper and Row, 1983.
Herrera, Hayden, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1991.
Hooks, Margaret, Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon, Artes Graficas Palermo, Spain, 2002.
Kettenmann, Andrea, Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and Passion, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2004.
Levine, Barbara with Stephen Jaycox, Finding Frida Kahlo: in Mexico, 55 years after the Death of Frida Kahlo, in San Miguel de Allende, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2009.
Richmond, Robin, Painters & Places: Frida Kahlo in Mexico, Pomegranite Artbooks, San Francisco, 1994.
Rosenthal, Mark, Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015.