Monday, May 12, 2014

Paintings Of Frida Kahlo And Degas

By Darren Hartley


With their intense and vibrant colors, Frida Kahlo paintings are best remembered for their pain and passion. Mexicans and feminists celebrate them, the former, as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition and the latter, for their uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

Categorized as Naive art or folk art, Frida Kahlo paintings feature Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural tradition prominently. They are also described as surrealist. In 1938, Frida was described as being a ribbon around a bomb by a bonafide surrealist artist.

Reflected in her works are the lifelong health problems of Frida. Frida prefers to paint portraits of herself because according to her she is so often alone and if there is one subject she knows best, it is herself. To quote Frida, she was born a bitch as well as a painter. Self portraits constitute half of the Frida Kahlo paintings.

Although Degas paintings have been labelled as impressionistic in style, Edgar Degas prefers to call himself as either a realist or independent. Edgar sought to capture the fleeting moments in the flow of modern life.

However, he showed little interest in painting plein air landscapes. Degas paintings favoured theatre and cafe scenes illuminated by artificial light, clarifying the contours of figures, in total adherence to an academic training.

Edgar's father recognized the artistic gifts of his son and encouraged his efforts at drawing by taking him to Paris museums frequently. Early Degas paintings were copies of Italian renaissance paintings at the Louvre.

Emphasizing on line and insisting on the crucial importance of draftsmanship, the traditional academic style was the style Edgar got his training in under the tutelage of Louis Lamothe. Another strong influence reflected in Degas paintings are those from paintings and frescoes Degas saw during his long Italian trips in the late 1850s. Edgar recorded these paintings and frescoes in his personal notebook by making his own drawings and sketches of them.




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