The unit is a studio course revolving around two central art production strategies: the visual journal and the mural. Within this dual focus, the exploration of Kahlo’s, Rivera’s and the student’s identity takes place. There is an endless variety of ways of presenting the activities in this unit. There is no prescribed order for the studio activities. A progression which introduces the artists and moves in a developmental manner from simple to complex is suggested. It is the author’s intention that the visual journal be an ongoing process from day one to possibly beyond the final day of the unit. The mural project might be added around half-way through the unit. It gives a bigger and more social dimension which is lacking in the art activities in the visual journal which tend to be contemplative and compact. Balancing between these two different art modalities should keep everyone happy. Like Kahlo and Rivera, students tend to have widely differing ways of preferred work style. When and how the components are introduced, one at a time, overlapping, alternating or ongoing, is a decision for the educator when considering the constituents of the class. The unit could be done solely using a visual journal or by only producing a mural with satisfactory results.
Visual Journal
The visual journal can take any manifestation, but a high quality artist’s sketchbook of 80- 100 pages is ideal. The vj serves many roles and functions. It is ubiquitous throughout the unit. It is a standard sketchbook for doodles, drawings, museum sketches, plans, designs and a place for storing visual ideas. It also contains more elaborate art expressions such as monotype, mixed media collage and transfer prints. Kahlo’s diary contains a rich and varied smorgasbord of material. It is a visually arresting and thought provoking work. If possible, obtain a facsimile edition and share excerpts with students.
Visual Art
The visual art activities within the pages of the student visual journal are an amalgamation loosely based on Kahlo’s diary with supplementary material added to round out the learning objectives. Some activities parallel specific diary entries, such as the surrealist game, constellations, drawings of pets, and self-portraits. Other activities are created for the visual journal, for example visually paraphrasing the art work of Kahlo and Rivera.
@3H(after2H):Visual Art Techniques
An array of art techniques and media some employed by Kahlo and some not, are used. Drawing, photomontage and collage are found in Kahlo’s diary as are colored pencil, ink, gouache (opaque watercolor), wash technique, crayon and Conté crayon.
Kahlo did not use traditional printmaking techniques in her diary. However, the leaking through of inks from page to page have the look and some of the visual flavor of monoprint. She splatters ink intentionally, pressing the pages of the diary together. From the smears and blobs, leaking and bleeding through pages, she harvests images, ripe from the imagination. Simple printmaking techniques are included for students, to add richness and texture as well as stimulate the mind. Monotype, for example, when printed on a blank page, is suggestive and evocative and provides a backdrop for writing and drawing and a place to discover images, much like the pages and echoing the methodolgy Kahlo uses in the diary.
Writing
The visual journal is also a writing journal. Just as the visual elements have their source in the diary of Kahlo, so do many but not all, of the written pieces. Stream of consciousness writing and reflections on the symbolism of color are two examples of writing in Kahlo’s diary. A descriptive and comparative analysis of “Fulang-Chang and I” and “The Making of a Fresco” is a writing experience created for the visual journal.
Mathematical calculations for the mural project are kept in the vj as well as daily process notes on the progress of the mural.
The Mural
The second educational strategy is a contrasting but complementary artistic production, a mural. Students design and execute a mural showing some aspect of student life. Process is the key to the mural project. Establishing rules, routines and decision making strategies is essential so students can work as independently of the teacher as possible. Students work as a team, cooperatively and collaboratively. They work out the mechanics of producing a large work of art with multiple artists moving through the art process as a group. Brainstorming, collecting data, planning and evaluating are part of the process. Student assigned tasks provide organization and fluidity. Mural documentation, sketches and calculations are done in the visual journal. Precision in mathematical calculation, measurement and use of a grid system to enlarge the design are employed.
The organization of “The Making of a Fresco” serves as a guide for the student endeavor. Instead of showing a fresco that shows how a city is made, students will make a mural featuring some aspects of daily life at school. Utilizing an underlying organizational visual metaphor, the art work also includes symbols. A recognizable portrait of each student is contained within the mural. The portraits show the students performing a role in the typical school day.
Important to Rivera and the mural project are its connections to the Modern Mexican Mural Movement, Italian Renaissance frescoes, ancient Mexican murals, movies and comic art which are all storytelling devices.
Rivera, along with David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896- 19740 and José Clemente Orozco (1883- 1949) comprise the three major artists of the modern Mexican mural movement beginning in 1921. Each of the artists renders the figure and historical events with characteristic style, technique and with highly distinguishing approaches. A primary source of inspiration for Rivera, is the Renaissance fresco. Rivera saw and admired these works in 1920-21 during a trip to Italy, at the end of his fourteen year stay in Europe. When he returned to Mexico, Rivera set out to make frescoes in Mexico and the United States in the traditional manner of the Italian masters. When Rivera looked to the Renaissance examples, he found a narrative form of the people, a formal compostion and classical technique. He also saw the ancient Mexican murals, newly discovered. Hollywood and film were of particular interest to Rivera. Students will be able to make the visual and intellectual connections among the art and message of a Rivera mural, a comic strip and a movie.
“Rivera saw in motion pictures a reconciliation between art and technology, as well as the fusion between southern and northern (Mexico and the United States) cultures that he sought. In addition he recognized the populist dimension of film, notably the earlier silent movies that dealt directly with class and labor issues, ... Rivera appreciated the mass communicative power of cinamatic narrative to which his murals offered a parallel. The comic-book nature of his presentation of historic events has also been noted as an aspect of his approach to modernity.”
A fresco is permanently affixed to wall. It is painted directly onto a wall or ceiling covered in fresh, wet plaster, one small part at a time. Unlike a real fresco, the student mural is not permanent, nor made with plaster. Using a ground such as laminated pieces of paper, burlap, canvas or other fabric, the student mural is portable. Another way in which the work of students differs from the traditional fresco is in dimension. A fresco is flush with the wall. The student mural is slightly three-dimensional or low-relief. Exploration of three-dimensional techniques and media lends texture and excitement to the project. Siqueiros thought murals should be powerful and energetic. His painted figures move through space with vitality. Siqueiros proposed that mural walls should be shaped three-dimensionally so that paintings on these surfaces would physically come forward and recede. In fact, this idea is old. Some of the images in the 17,000 year old cave paintings in Lascaux, France use the natural contours of the walls to make the animals appear three dimensional.
Evaluation
Evaluation tools such as rubrics, are created by students and teacher and are employed at intervals during the unit. Results are useful in determining the degree of success in achieving objectives and for adjusting and correcting work habits throughout the process.
This studio experience is meant to be artistically rigorous, rich and complex. In it, students learn with profundity, about themselves in their environment, both as private individuals and as public people. Students create a personal narrative in the form of a journal, and place themselves within the larger narrative of a mural.
Reproductions appear with permission.
KAHLO, Frida
Fulang-Chang and I. 1937
Two-part ensemble (assembled after 1939). Part one: 1937, oil on composition board, 15 3/4 x 11” (39.9 x 27.9 cm); painted mirror frame (added after 1939), 22 1/4 x 17 3/8 x 1 3/4” (56.6 x 44.1 x 4.5 cm). Part two: (after 1939) mirror with painted frame, 25 1/4 x 19 1/8 x 1 3/4” (64.1 x 48.5 x 4.4 cm), including frame.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mary Sklar Bequest. Photograph © 1999 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Diego Rivera
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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
Photograph © The Detroit Institute of Arts
Photographer: Dirk Bakker
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: An Abbreviated Timeline
1886
December 13 Diego Rivera born in Guanajuato, Mexico.
1889
Rivera begins to draw.
1898
Rivera enrolls in San Carlos for the study of art.
1906- 10
Rivera wins scholarship for study in Europe.
1907
Frida Kahlo born in Coyoacán, a suburb of Mexico City.
1910
Mexican Revolution. Rivera has successful exhibition.
1911
Rivera returns to Europe to paint and exhibit.
1913
Kahlo contracts polio.
1913-7
Rivera’s Cubist Period.
1921
Rivera returns to Mexico.
1922
Rivera begins first mural.
Kahlo enters La Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (The National Preparatory School).
Kahlo and Rivera first meet when Rivera paints murals in the auditorium at the Preparatoria.
1925
Kahlo takes private art classes.
Kahlo severely injured in streetcar accident.
1926
While recovering from accident, Kahlo begins to paint.
1927
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Kahlo and Rivera meet.
1927-8
Rivera visits Soviet Union
1929
Rivera begins work on Palacio Nacional murals showing the history of Mexico.
Kahlo and Rivera marry.
1930
Rivera and Kahlo travel to San Francisco, California.
April 30- June 2 paints the “Making of a Fresco” in the gallery of the California School of Fine Arts
1931
Rivera returns to Mexico.
1932
Rivera and Kahlo travel to Detroit, Michigan and New York. Rivera paints murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts and at the New Workers School and RCA Building in New York.
1934
Rivera returns to Mexico.
1935
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Kahlo painting.
1937- 42
Rivera paints no murals in Mexico, works on sketches and paintings.
1937
Kahlo paints “Fulang-Chang and I.”
1938
In New York, Kahlo’s first painting exhibitions.
1939
Kahlo travels to Paris and exhibits work.
Kahlo and Rivera divorce.
1940
Rivera and Kahlo travel to San Francisco to exhibit and paint. They remarry.
1941
Rivera and Kahlo return to Mexico to continue working, Rivera on murals, paintings and a mosaic and Kahlo on paintings.
1944- 54
Kahlo keeps painted and written diary.
1943
Kahlo begins teaching painting.
1946- 53
Kahlo undergoes many surgeries.
Kahlo is awarded the National Painting Award.
1949
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Major retrospective of 1,000 pieces of Rivera’s work in Mexico.
1953
Kahlo’s first solo exhibit in Mexico.
1954
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Kahlo dies.
1955
Rivera travels to Moscow and Eastern Europe.
1957
Mural at California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute) is cleaned and rededicated after being hidden behind a false wall in around 1947.
Rivera dies.