Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera guide and inform this unit in two important ways- through their mode of art production and the art work itself. Art production by students follows the form and content of Kahlo’s diary and the making of a mural in the spirit of Rivera. Rather than looking at the extensive examples of art work available by these artists, focus is on one key work by each artist which is examined in depth, “Fulang-Chang and I” (Kahrast, seeks to illuminate identity through enormous, heroic mural frescoes done in a realistic style. The combination of indigenous Mexican culture, the history of Mexico, the ideology of the Mexican Revolution and occasionally, autobiographical narrative, comprise the subject matter of Rivera’s frescoes. He is often portrayed in his frescoes. His work is primarily in Mexico. Frescoes by Rivera in the United States, of which there are three, celebrate the American worker and industry. Two frescoes are located in San Francisco, California.
____
Two works of art are examined closely: Kahlo’s “Fulang-Chang and I” (Two-part ensemble, assembled after 1939- Part one: 1937, oil on composition board, 15 3/4 X 11”; painted mirror frame added 1939, 22 1/4 X 17 3/8 X 1 3/4”. The Museum of Modern Art) and Rivera’s “The Making of a Fresco, Showing the Building of a City” (April- June 1931, fresco, 5.68 X 9.91 m. San Francisco Art Institute). Close examination of these two art works present insights, questions and answers which are accessible to middle school students.
According to Hayden Herrera, the Kahlo self-portrait, “Fulang-Chang and I” was given by the artist to a friend, Mary Sklar along with a folkloric mirror and frame. Kahlo hoped that Sklar would hang the mirror next to the painting so that the two friends would appear together, Sklar’s image reflected in the mirror, Kahlo’s in the painting. Sklar later bequeathed the painting and mirror to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painted, folk mirror frame which currently houses “Fulang-Chang and I” in the museum, exemplifies a significant point. It not only represents the indispensable tool of self-portraiture, the mirror, but it stands for the folk traditions embraced by Kahlo. A red and white painted floral motif decorates the segmented mirror frame. Kahlo looks out with a characteristic gaze, appearing relaxed. A lavender ribbon gently weaves through her loose, but neatly arranged hair and around her neck and around her pet monkey, Fulang-Chang, joining the two. The monkey is still, not typical behavior for a monkey, posing, as if human. Behind Kahlo and the monkey is a background of lush, indigenous vegetation, suffocatingly close to the pair.
“The Making of a Fresco” in the exhibition hall at the San Francisco Art Institute is unusual and interesting. It was a commissioned by the San Francisco Art Association. It shows Rivera and his assistants on a scaffold from behind, employed in the act of making a fresco of the construction of a city. It is a painting within a painting, a trompe l’ oeil. It is, in fact a self-portrait of the muralist in his characteristic environment, on a scaffold, in front of a mural. The intended audience is art students. The scaffold provides a compartmentalized arrangement of space and metaphorically represents a structure or social system with the artist or industrial worker as the central character. The artist, sitting on the scaffold with his back to the audience, paint brush and palette in hand, pauses, as his assistants paint a huge, industrial worker. Arrayed around the worker in a dense, claustrophobic composition, are the other “builders of the city,” some displayed as anonymous faces and others clearly depicted. In addition to Rivera, other figures include Ralph Stackpole, sculptor, William Gerstle, president of the San Francisco Art Association, Timothy Pfleuger, architect and Arthur Brown, Jr. architect of the California School of Fine Arts (later San Francisco At Institute). Assistants to Rivera, John Viscount Hastings, Clifford Wright and Matthew Barnes and others are discernible. Bellows and steel workers, steel and heating riveters and nameless sculptor’s assistants are among the cast of characters. One woman, Mrs. Marion Simpson, also identified as Geraldine Colby or Mrs. Fricke, appears in the mural, working at a drafting table. Symbols are found throughout the composition such as the pressure gauge, and soaring airplane. It appears as if the students of the San Francisco Art Institute may have “corrected” one of the symbols on the fresco. The pocket of the central figure bears a red patch. Documentation from 1930- around 1982 showed it be a red star within a circle, perhaps a subtle symbol of communism. After 1982 the red patch appears as a hammer and sickle, a blatant symbol of communism. After a cleaning of the mural in 1990, pigmented toothpaste was removed from the hammer and sickle patch to reveal the original star and circle. It appears as if the students at the Art Institute have a close affinity with this impressive fresco, and an even closer bond with its maker.
These two works of art invite comparison. Both works depict the artist. How does the viewer see the artist? The viewer observes Kahlo gazing intently at herself in a mirror which is located about where the viewer stands to examine the painting. Rivera is gazing intently as well, but not at the viewer. Rivera looks at his fresco, his mirror. He is revealed to the audience from the rear, Kahlo from the front. In both works, the viewer gazes persistently upon an artist who is in the center of her or his respective universe. Kahlo looks back at the viewer. Rivera also returns his gaze, but through his painting of the industrial worker. Rivera’s painted image contemplates this symbol of twentieth century man who looks at the viewer in Rivera’s stead. A provocative series of contrasting dyads emerges: front- back, female- male, the artist alone (with a pet)- the artist in the center of a large group, small- large, intimate- heroic, private- public, surrealism- realism, oil painting- fresco, direct- indirect. Each comparison offers a point of departure for thought and reflection. What is in the pictures? What are the formal constructions? What are the artists trying to say? Have the artists been successful? Does this comparison effect how I see myself in my art work? Will it change how I portray myself in the future? Am I more like Kahlo or Rivera?
Pre-Columbian art and the folk art traditions of Mexico appear in the work of Rivera and Kahlo from traditional Mexican attire to art objects and allusion to Aztec sculpture. Their residences and studios abound with objects showing their reverence for the past and popular arts. Both artists celebrated the glorious past of Mexico and art of the people as part of the national identity. The use of cultural symbols in the art of Kahlo and Rivera serves to further define their identities. When students depict themselves, what symbols are included? To which cultural groups do students identify?
Kahlo and Rivera present pictorial narratives. Kahlo’s was a personal narrative, her life history in paintings. In her own words, “I paint my own reality. The only thing that I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.” Rivera’s narrative was that of the past and present histories of nations shown simultaneously and personalized. In “The Making of a Fresco” and other works, Rivera’s narrative includes images of people of the past and present, nameless masses, specific individuals, Rivera himself and his contemporaries. The fresco, “Pan-American Unity” includes in its vast array of humanity, a depiction of Frida Kahlo. Rivera describes the origin of his mural style upon returning to Mexico from Europe.
“My homecoming produced an aesthetic exhilaration which it is impossible to describe. It was as if I was being born anew, born in a new world... I was in the very center of the plastic world, where forms and colors existed in absolute purity. In everything I saw a potential masterpiece- the crowds, the markets, the festivals, the marching battalions, the workingmen in the shop and in the fields- in every glowing face, in every luminous child...”
How do students describe their motivation for image making? My students say they make art to express themselves, to say what can’t be said in the regular course of the day. They make art because it is a pleasure. They say without art, life is drab. They elaborate and say that without a means of expression, anger and bottled up feelings might explode in an anti-social manner. Young people want to visually assert their individual narratives, in fact they urgently need to do so, and in the process, they begin to form and develop personal identity.