The dawn of Frida Kahlo's political activism began when a handrail impaled her during an automobile accident in the age of eighteen. She suffered fractures to her spine and pelvis. After being bedridden for several months, she decided to bring her emotions to life through the bright colors of her brush. His influences were the indigenous cultures of Mexico as well as European culture, which included: realism, symbolism and surrealism. Years later, Kahlo married another muse for her works, Diego Rivera. After numerous infidelities, the couple divorced and got back together shortly after. Taking a look at "Las Dos Fridas", her "Self-Portrait with Necklace of Thorns and Hummingbird" and her "Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair", it is evident that Kahlo created her own visual language through her works in describing grief. she confronted her marriage, her mixed heritage, her serious health problems and the oppression of women, in an effort to provoke thought in her audience. Today she is well known for her harsh self-portraits, painted with jarring colors and bizarre landscapes. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay One of his best-known plays is “Las Dos Fridas,” which translates to “The Two Fridas.” It was completed in 1939. This self-portrait depicts two identical Kahlos, one in European-style attire and the other in traditional Mexican attire. She holds hands on a bench outside on an overcast day. On the left, the European Kahlo, dressed in a white, bloody dress, holds a hemostat, a surgical tool used to control bleeding. On the right, Mexican Kahlo holding a portrait of Rivera. It is connected to itself by a common blood vessel that connects to its other heart. She created this new painting to replace an old painting of her and her ex-husband, Rivera. It's her way of moving from her past, difficult relationship with Rivera to reconciling new growth within herself. Kahlo uses heavy pathos to allow the audience to vicariously feel her pain in this work of art. The bloodstains on her white dress illustrate chaotic healing, but the hemostat in her hand indicates she is in control of how she uses her pain. Even though a lover's grief is difficult, she allows her brushwork to be a form of catharsis for her grief. Her heart is exposed in this painting to reveal that she is in a vulnerable moment in her life. Kahlo shares a blood vessel with herself and holds her other hand. In doing so, she attempts to bring together the different facets of herself, both physically and emotionally. The visual representation of this painting is realistic in that it pays close attention to the details of his face and clothing, in contrast to the gaping hole in his chest where his heart appears. The duality of her characters indicates that her husband's infidelity bothers her, so she maintains a stern appearance. This is how she manages to use her emotions as an outlet for her art. His face, both solemn and pensive, goes against the social norms of the time. Women were expected to stay in the shadow of their husbands, but Kahlo believed she was her own person. As a feminist figure, she felt it important to be transparent about her emotions. She emotionally calls on her core audience to stand up for themselves, especially other women dealing with broken relationships. Then, in 1940, Kahlo painted another self-portrait of herself wearing a necklace of thorns with a hummingbird pendant. She faces the gaze ofspectator in this work of art. Her pout and bold eyebrows grab the viewer's attention as she guides the viewer's gaze to her neckline, where a necklace of thorns is wrapped around her along with a hummingbird pendant. She sits in the middle of a dense jungle full of various creatures. The colors of the jungle are bright greens and yellows in the background, but everything in the foreground has a duller color. On one shoulder there is a monkey pulling on the necklace of thorns, making her bleed; meanwhile, a black panther looks over his other shoulder. Two butterfly clips hold her hair, which resembles an infinity symbol. Above his head are two dragonflies with flowers on their heads, flying around. In this particular piece of art, Kahlo immerses herself in nature. Her hummingbird pendant goes against its typical symbolism, where they are generally full of life and freedom. On the other hand, this portrait represents the lifeless hummingbird. Additionally, in Mexican culture, hummingbirds represent good luck. This is in contrast to the black panther, or black cat, who looks over his shoulder. The monkey, in Mexican culture, represents lust, but Kahlo depicted the monkey as a protective symbol in this piece. One day, she received a monkey from her then-husband, Rivera. Perhaps the monkey symbolized his personality because this work of art was painted after his first divorce from Rivera. The monkey makes it bleed by pulling on the thorns; in other words, there were still wounds after her divorce from Rivera. This symbolic use of pathos lets the audience know that their physical and emotional coincide. The thorns around his neck could allude to the thorns around the head of Jesus Christ and the pain he endured before his crucifixion. As the eye naturally looks upwards, one can observe how her hair is shaped into an infinity symbol where the butterfly clips rest. Additionally, butterflies usually symbolize new birth or resurrection, which juxtaposes the meaning of the thorns around her neckline. Above her brown hair are dragonflies. They are placed to represent a change in self-realization. But to go deeper, both dragonflies have flower heads. This interweaves flora and fauna; which represent fertility. The two butterfly clips in her hair and the two dragonflies above her head have meaning. Dragonflies are alive, but butterflies are just clips. This work is heavy with symbolic contrasts and draws on nature more than most of his other works. After her divorce, she also painted another self-portrait of her cut hair called “Self-Portrait with Cut Hair.” She is seen in a suit sitting on a bright yellow chair with her brown locks in her lap with a pair of scissors. At the top of the portrait are Mexican folk lyrics translated into English as "Listen, the reason I loved you was because of your hair." Now that you don't have any hair, I don't love you anymore. » This art shows that Kahlo is independent of Rivera's love. This is symbolized by her hair, as hair is generally a symbol of beauty and youth. In this case, it is obvious that she is cutting her own hair because she is holding the shears in her hand. Her hair is spread across the floor, while some remains in her lap. She refuses to adhere to traditional gender norms by cutting her hair and wearing a masculine costume. Her main audience is Rivera, as she throws punches at him using the folk lyrics at the top of the chart. Its secondary audience is society as a whole. The colors are more muted and..