Zbigniew Bialas / Hasan Aslan / Mehmet Ali Icbay / Hasan Arslan

86
 
Tugba Batuhan 
 
as a boy, in pants, boots, jacket… but when I went to See Diego, I wore a Tehuana outfit. I 
have never been to Tehuantepec, nor has Diego wanted to take me there. I have no 
relationship with its people, but among all of Mexican dress, the Tehuana costume is my 
favorite, and that is why I dress like a Tehuana” (Conde, 2008, p. 33). 
 
 
Stylistically old fashioned, regional, and handmade Tehuana skirts and huipiles are 
Indispensable clothing for Frida in daily life and public life as well as her haute couture 
clothes which are probably handed down through her mother or maternal grandmother 
(Conde, 2008). Because this dress is related to economically and socially dominate women of 
Tehuantepec, her nationalist attachment is also about her family and ethnic background.  
 
One of Frida’s self-portraits is The Two Fridas, 1939, which represents her divorce 
with Rivera.  Its origin is in her imaginary childhood friend that recorded misery at being 
separated from Rivera (Herrara, 1991). In the painting, one side of Frida still loves Rivera, 
and the other does not have love anymore. Yet clues do not appear about her feeling on the 
two faces because they have no facial expression. The woman in the painting with the 
Tehuana dressing is Frida, who had loved Rivera with her whole heart (Herrara, 1991). The 
other Frida has a broken heart and cut her relationship up with Rivera with a scissors, even 
though her connection is still fighting for being alive through the women’s hand. The clouds 
are probably demonstrating her inner anger about Rivera. She could have painted two Fridas 
in the painting to look inward on the Frida she used to be.   
Frida was the first woman in Mexican art, who wore regional clothes (Herrara, 1991). 
“Tehuana costume embodies a public statement of allegiance and opposition” (Schaefer, 
1992, p. 25). Frida’s clothing is a presentation of her relationship with Rivera. “She 
considered her apparent nativism as a concession to Rivera” because when Rivera and Frida 
divorced, she did not find her nativism in herself and had a boy’s haircut and began wearing 
male clothes in her self-portrait (Tibol, 2000, p. 25). Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940 
shows “masculine attire defines her as an alternative, androgynous” (Ankori, 2005, p. 42). 
Frida’s nationalism and feminity might seem to depend on her lover, Rivera. 
 
Frida Kahlo expresses herself with paintings and also represents herself via dresses, 
hairstyle, and jewelry. She combines both genders –female and male- and appears as a man at 
the age of nineteen (Dexter, 2005). Kahlo did not hesitate to present herself within man dress; 
perhaps she wanted to reveal her homosexuality. It is also possible to think that she might 
have wanted to describe paternalistic Mexico in a female body to represent her inside female-
fighter against men because the Revolution is relevant to women as well as men. Representing 
herself in masculine dress also describes her depression situation. This is because the same 
pose would be seen in her self-portrait after she got the bad news about her personal life. 
From this point of view, Frida’s personal life has an important effect on her paintings. 
 
Rivera came into Frida’s life in 1929. Rivera changed Frida’s painting and she 
adopted nativist faith when she married to Rivera (Herrara, 1991). Rivera is also the first one 
to suggest that Frida paint herself (Schaefer, 1992). Rivera was the only person who helped 
Frida to overcome the psychical pain and to give self-confidence to her painting. He is the 
heart’s blood for her. She wanted him to love her which she explain it with her own words: “I 
began to paint things that he liked. From that time on he admired me and loved me” (Tibol, 
2000, p. 66). 
 
Frida demonstrates Rivera’s meaning for her in her dairy within her own words: 
 
“Diego the beginning 

---

87
 
Self Portraits of Frida: Mexican Cultural Context Between the Accident and Diego 
 
 
 
Diego the builder 
 
Diego my child 
 
Diego the painter 
 
Diego my lover 
 
Diego my husband 
 
Diego my friend  
 
Diego my mother 
 
Diego my father 
 
Diego my child 
 
Diego me 
 
Diego the universe” (Tibol, 2000, p. 28). 
 
Rivera and Kahlo remarried in 1940 and following their marriage Kahlo painted 
herself in Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1941. The hummingbird is a symbol of her 
successive experiences of loss through love instead of its real meaning luck in love in 
Mexico (Barson, 2005). Kahlo’s Mexican roots appear with Rivera and she is able to find her 
national identity with his presence. In addition, Rivera and Frida did not have sexual life after 
their second marriage because of Frida’s health problem. From this point, the hummingbird 
found meaning within her symbolism. 
 
Eastern influence, ancient Aztec folklore, and religious elements are represented in 
Frida’s late works. The third eye became an important figure in her self-portrait and other 
paintings. Mexican cultural connection of self-portraits and women’s suffering are the main 
topic of Frida Kahlo’s paintings. While Kahlo demonstrated the cultural context of Mexico in 
artistic perspective, she also represented herself within reality as a real pained human being. 
From 1943 to 1949, Frida used Rivera to represent her “mind’s eye” in whom she wants to 
find her own identity such as the painting, Self-Portrait as a Tehuana and Diego and I 
(Schaefer, 1992). The third-eye is an important figure in Frida’s paintings that links her 
memory, and her body to the world.  
 
During 1950 and 1951, even though Frida wanted to help the Communist Party by her 
painting for the Revolution, she believed the self-portraits were as an honest expression of 
herself but were unable to help the party. For this reason she wanted to change her painting 
style to something useful (Tibol, 2000). Frida’s political beliefs were emphasized in her late 
works, such as an unfinished portrait of Stalin in Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick, 1954 
(Barson, 2005). This late work of hers presents “her desire to fuse her interest in healing with 
the egalitarian socialist project that seemed all but dead in her native Mexico” (Dexter, 2005, 
p.27). In this complex work, Kahlo is able to equalize social and political forces, while she 
reveals the notion of healing and self-portrait together with political figures.  
 
4. Conclusion 
Frida Kahlo succeeded in making her works versatile to represent the democratic Mexico’s 
search for a national identity (Dexter, 2005). Kahlo’s works are political, being that they carry 
a political message. The painting in her works do not only represent Mexican nationality but 
also weaknesses of her own body mirrors Mexican liberation and revolution as well as her 
“achilles heel” about Rivera. Her health problems, Rivera, and Mexican cultural context make 
up a triangulation of her art.   
 

---