Title of painting: The Dream (The Bed)
Name of artist: Frida Kahlo
Year produced: 1940
Country of origin: Mexico
Context: In 1940, Frida Kahlo painted “The Dream”. It was painted using oils on canvas. The style Frida went for was wai art. The painting shows Frida laying on her bed with a papier-mache skeleton on the canopy of her bed. The skeleton on the canopy reminds her of the Day of the Dead and mortality. The painting gained popularity because it was painted around the time that Kahlo and Diego Rivera remarried, which helped her artistic reputation grow in 1940. The painting was made in Mexico.
Artist: Frida Kahlo was a Mexican self portrait artist who is seen as a huge feminist figure. She was born on July 6, 1907 and died on July 13,1954. She did not start painting until 1925, after she was intensely injured in a bus accident. A car crashed into the bus she was on, and a steel handrail punctured her hip and came out through the other side. She also experienced bone breakage in areas such as her spine and pelvis. After her accident, Kahlo joined the Young Communist League and the Mexican Communist Party. She was very politically active throughout her life. Frida Kahlo married painter Diego Rivera in 1928. Together they traveled to many places displaying their art. Rivera committed adultery with many people include Kahlo's sister. Due to his actions, they divorced in 1939, but remarried in 1940. Kahlo's self portraits were often deep and personal. She was very injured or sick at many times throughout her life, so her art often showed her physical or emotional pain. Kahlo was hospitalized multiple times in the last four years of her life due to gangrene, depression, and possible suicide attempts. A week after her 47th birthday, she died. The cause of her death is unknown, however most stories lead people to think it was either caused by a pulmonary embolism or that she committed suicide.
Analysis Unlike most cultures, in the Mexican culture death is not mourned, but is almost romanticized and viewed as a peaceful experience. Every morning, Frida Kahlo woke up to a papier-mâché skeleton named Juda, like the one shown in the painting, that rested on the canopy of her bed. In the painting, Kahlo is sleeping. She and the skeleton lay their heads on two pillows and the bed is in the clouds. Vines are embroidered on the blanket and then come to life and entwine Frida, while explosives entwine Juda. The vines represent life and Juda represents death.
Theme: The theme of “The Dream”, like many of Kahlo’s paintings, is essentially life and death. The vines and roots that wrap around Frida as she sleeps represent rebirth, while the explosives and wires that wrap around the papier-mache skeleton represent death. In Mexican culture, death is beheld as peaceful.
Members of Group:
Name of artist: Frida Kahlo
Year produced: 1940
Country of origin: Mexico
Context: In 1940, Frida Kahlo painted “The Dream”. It was painted using oils on canvas. The style Frida went for was wai art. The painting shows Frida laying on her bed with a papier-mache skeleton on the canopy of her bed. The skeleton on the canopy reminds her of the Day of the Dead and mortality. The painting gained popularity because it was painted around the time that Kahlo and Diego Rivera remarried, which helped her artistic reputation grow in 1940. The painting was made in Mexico.
Artist: Frida Kahlo was a Mexican self portrait artist who is seen as a huge feminist figure. She was born on July 6, 1907 and died on July 13,1954. She did not start painting until 1925, after she was intensely injured in a bus accident. A car crashed into the bus she was on, and a steel handrail punctured her hip and came out through the other side. She also experienced bone breakage in areas such as her spine and pelvis. After her accident, Kahlo joined the Young Communist League and the Mexican Communist Party. She was very politically active throughout her life. Frida Kahlo married painter Diego Rivera in 1928. Together they traveled to many places displaying their art. Rivera committed adultery with many people include Kahlo's sister. Due to his actions, they divorced in 1939, but remarried in 1940. Kahlo's self portraits were often deep and personal. She was very injured or sick at many times throughout her life, so her art often showed her physical or emotional pain. Kahlo was hospitalized multiple times in the last four years of her life due to gangrene, depression, and possible suicide attempts. A week after her 47th birthday, she died. The cause of her death is unknown, however most stories lead people to think it was either caused by a pulmonary embolism or that she committed suicide.
Analysis Unlike most cultures, in the Mexican culture death is not mourned, but is almost romanticized and viewed as a peaceful experience. Every morning, Frida Kahlo woke up to a papier-mâché skeleton named Juda, like the one shown in the painting, that rested on the canopy of her bed. In the painting, Kahlo is sleeping. She and the skeleton lay their heads on two pillows and the bed is in the clouds. Vines are embroidered on the blanket and then come to life and entwine Frida, while explosives entwine Juda. The vines represent life and Juda represents death.
Theme: The theme of “The Dream”, like many of Kahlo’s paintings, is essentially life and death. The vines and roots that wrap around Frida as she sleeps represent rebirth, while the explosives and wires that wrap around the papier-mache skeleton represent death. In Mexican culture, death is beheld as peaceful.
Members of Group:
- Kaylah Turner
- Kaylee Weidenfeld
- Tatiana Collins
- Austin Hollister