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The Changing Face of Vallotton
Before photography came along paintings were undoubtedly the best way of providing a lasting imprint of a person’s physical appearance. It’s always confused and delighted me how dabs of paint on a canvas can be transformed into a likeness of a person, and at the hands of the best artists, can reveal a true sense of temperament and character. And due to our natural predisposition to study faces, it is perhaps one of the hardest painterly tasks to get right (one only needs look at the sincere but botched ‘Monkey Jesus’ Fresco to see how wrong it can go).
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The Pond-Like Qualities of Frida and Diego
Diego Rivera. Frida Kahlo. A new exhibition at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. It feels like old ground, and yet we (and, by we, I mean museums and galleries), keep on putting new exhibitions up, re-showing the same work over and over again. Isn’t this just a curriculum which we are repeating? A monopoly set where we never get to pass ‘GO’? A dream that we never seem to be able to wake up from? No, actually it isn’t. What we can learn from Frida and Diego, and all other artists who are being exhibited (be it once, twice, or two thousand times), is that their work is important.…
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Frida Kahlo und Diego Rivera: Leidenschaft, Politik und Malerei
„Diego schoss einmal auf ein Grammophon während einer von Tinas Partys. Das war zu der Zeit, als ich mich für ihn interessierte, obwohl ich mich vor ihm fürchtete.“ Frida Kahlo Wenn sich zwei exzentrische Künstler ineinander verlieben – und das lehrt uns nicht nur Hollywood – geht das in der Regel nicht gut aus. Und in der Tat konnte man die im Jahr 1929 zwischen Diego Rivera (1886-1957) und Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) geschlossene Ehe nicht gerade als gesund bezeichnen. Die beiden gaben schon vom Erscheinungsbild her ein ungleiches Paar ab: Rivera, der stämmige Revolutionär und die zwanzig Jahre jüngere und neben ihm noch kleiner und zierlicher wirkende Kahlo – „petite,…
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A Life Most Solitary?
The place: Mexico. The year: Post-1910. Mexico was on the verge of change. Political instability, the blight of dictatorship, a peasants’ revolt: with events such as the Mexican Revolution fresh in everyone’s minds, passions must have run high. Actions were no longer as restrained. The freedoms of speech and desire were rife. We need only look to those well-known Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera for reference. Despite the volatile relationship shared by the painters (both of whom had several extra-marital affairs during their time together), Kahlo lived in an isolated world. A pain-filled existence was all she ever knew from the age of 6, when she contracted polio,…
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