Frida Kahlo I: love embrace of the universe

The Aztec religion was characterized by a dualistic view of the world. The universe is divided horizontally into three large areas: the Underworld (Chicnauhmictlan), the Earth (Tlaltícpac), and the realm of the heavens (Chicnauhtopan). The upper heavens are the abodes of the gods, and the lower heavens contain the stars. The earth was imagined as …

The Aztec religion was characterized by a dualistic view of the world.

The universe is divided horizontally into three large areas: the Underworld (Chicnauhmictlan), the Earth (Tlaltícpac), and the realm of the heavens (Chicnauhtopan). The upper heavens are the abodes of the gods, and the lower heavens contain the stars. The earth was imagined as a large disc.

– surrounded by water – at the center of the universe.

According to another version, the earth was the back of an alligator swimming in the water. The Earth was considered the center of the cosmos. Above the earth, there were thirteen layers of the sky; below it were nine layers of the underworld. According to the Codex Rios the moon and clouds are in the first heaven, the stars in the second, the sun in the third, in the fourth the morning and evening stars, in the fifth the comets, in the sixth and seventh colors and in the eighth the storms. The gods are present in the ninth to eleventh heavens, and the twelfth and three-tenth heavens are the place of duality, the Omeyocan.

Everything that exists consists “of a balanced opposition of two substances (…), which in turn themselves in many different binary opposites. On the one hand were life, heat, light, dryness, height, masculinity, strength, time of day, on the other death, cold, darkness, dampness, smallness, femininity, weakness, night time among other equivalents.1” This is also reflected in the often dualistic or at least ambivalent aspects that characterize one and the same deity. A characteristic of the cosmic worldview is the division of the universe into four directions, each of which is assigned a deity, a color, and a symbol. The idea of battle as a model of cosmic events is also formative.

This dualistic principle determines the numerous works of Frida Kahlo and provided the inspiration for her art. For her, it became the expression of her philosophy of nature and philosophy of life, her view of the world.

Dualism is based on the Aztec concept of the permanent war between the white god Hutzilopochti – the sun god, the embodiment of day, summer, south and fire south, of fire – and his adversary Tezcatlipoca – the black god, the god of the setting sun, the sunset, the embodiment of night and the starry sky night, the wind, the north, the water.

This battle guarantees the balance of the world. The principle of duality in unity is particularly present in her self-portraits, where she divides the picture ground into a light and a dark, a day and a night half. At the same time, the sun and moon, the masculine and feminine principles, are present. This division of the universe continues into her own person when she presents herself as a split personality.

The idea of mutually dependent life and death is also contained in this philosophy of balance taken from Indian mythology. In numerous works, life is symbolized as the eternal cycle of nature through plants. Part of this cycle, this cycle of life, which in Aztec mythology is represented by the goddess Coatlicue, is death. Coatlicue stands for the beginning and end of all things, contains life and death, and gives and takes at the same time.

Therefore, in the Mexican sense, death always means both rebirth and life. Thus, death in the self-portrait Thoughts of Death against a background with thorny branches. With this symbol of pre-Hispanic mythology, the painter interprets the rebirth following death.

To emphasize the prevailing attitude toward death in Mexico, one must familiarize oneself with the pre-Columbian philosophy of life. This attitude toward death is expressed above all in customs and popular beliefs on November 2, the Day of the Dead. At the same time, it is an expression of gratitude for life and recognition of the life cycle because death is understood more as a process, a path, or a transition to a different kind of life.

One of Frida Kahlo’s paintings in which ancient Mexican mythology is particularly prominent is The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), I, Diego and Senor Xolotl as in the dualistic principle that finds its parallel in the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy. Day and night penetrate each other. Light-filled spirituality and lightless matter, sun, and mons form the nuclei of the universe, which embraces the dark earth. The earth goddess Cihuacoatl, the life-giving mother from whose womb all plants sprout according to mythology, holds similar to the Indian wet nurse in “My Nurse and I”, holds the artist in her fertile womb.

The wet nurse is the smaller image of the earth mother, but where the life-giving drop of milk emerges from the breast, a fountain of blood springs from her. The thus so painfully felt inability to bear a child allows her to assume the role of mother to Diego Rivera. Like a Madonna, she holds him, whose figure is reminiscent of that of a Buddha, in her arms. As in the self-portrait

“Diego and I”, he has the third eye, the eye of wisdom, and is also holding the purifying bundle of flames, which stands for renewal and rebirth.

In an essay written by the artist on the occasion of an exhibition of her husband’s work in 1949, she described him according to the portrait painted here: “With his head of Asian type, on which the dark hair grows so thin and fine that it seems to float in the air, Diego is a huge child, with a friendly face and a slightly sad look. (…) Between these eyes, one so far removed from the other one is so distant from the other, one can guess the invisible of oriental wisdom, and only very rarely disappears from his Buddha-like mouth with its fleshy lips an ironic and tender smile, the flower of his image. If you see him naked, you immediately think of a frog boy standing on his hind legs. His skin is thoroughly white, like that of an aquatic animal. Only his hands and face are dark, as the sun has tanned them. His childlike, narrow and round shoulders merge without a heel into feminine arms and end in wonderful, small and finely drawn hands that, sensitive and delicate and sensitive, communicate like guides with the entire universe.2

She emphasized that women in general and “among them all – ME – always want to hold him like a newborn child”. Rivera also depicted this mother-child relationship in his mural Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park. Frida Kahlo stands with the yin-yang symbol in her left hand behind the boy Diego. Diego, her hand placed protectively on his shoulder.

For the artist, however, her husband was not just her unborn child – he meant much more to her. For more:

 

“Diego. Beginning Diversity and Unity Diego. Builder Diego. My child Diego. My groom Diego. Painter Diego. my lover

Diego. “my husband,” Diego. my friend

Diego. My father, Diego. My mother, Diego. My son Diego. me

Diego. Universe

Why do I call him my Diego? He was never mine, nor will he ever be. He only belongs to himself,” she wrote in her diary.

 

The fact that her companion not only determined her thoughts, as she depicted in the self- portrait “Diego in my thoughts”, but almost merged with the artist, she also expressed this in the double portrait of “Diego and Frida”, created a year later. Expressed. She painted it for Revera’s 58th birthday. The dualistic relationship between man and woman, which finds its counterpart in the sun and moon, shows the togetherness of the Kahlo-Rivera couple, whereby the shell and snail symbolize their Love and amalgamation.

This love affair is guarded in the loving embrace of the universe by the Itzcuintli dog Senor Xolotl, who crouches at the couple’s feet. He is not just any pet of the painter who bore this name. He also represents the dog-like creature Xolotl from ancient Mexican mythology, which guards the realm of the dead.

He rounds off the dualistic principle of pre-Hispanic mythology – life and death are equally integrated into the artist’s harmonious worldview.

 

References

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