Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Frida Kahlo And Degas Paintings

By Darren Hartley


Frida Kahlo paintings are best remembered for their pain and passion and their intense, vibrant colors. They are celebrated as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition by the Mexicans and for their uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form by feminists.

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.

Because Edgar had very little energy for painting plein air landscapes, Degas paintings frequently depicted theatre and cafe scenes illuminated in artificial light. In complete adherence to his academic training, Edgar used this light in the clarification of the contours of his figures.

Recognizing the artistic gifts of his son, Edgar's father took him frequently to Paris museums in an effort to encourage his efforts at drawing. Copies of Italian renaissance paintings at the Louvre consisted the early Degas paintings.

Edgar's training in the traditional academic style started in the studio of Louis Lamothe, with emphasis on line and insistence on the crucial importance of draftsmanship. Degas paintings were also strongly influenced by paintings and frescoes seen during long Italian trips in the late 1850s, when Edgar made many sketches and drawings of these paintings and frescoes in his personal notebooks.




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