Mental World And Connotative Meanings In Frida's Works

Frida Kahlo?1907.7.6-1954.7.13?,born in Coyoacan in southern Mexico,was a world-wide notable female artist in the 20^th century.She suffered a lot in her whole enthusiastic life but also attracted much attention,as she presented her mental pain in her creation fully.The life of Frida is like a diary,which genuinely records her understanding about living and life at her every stage.Frida not only existed as an artist,in the meanwhile,the relationship between her creation and individual is also a strong proof of psychoanalytic methods' stepping in and exploring in art.As a matter of fact,apart from psychoanalytic methods in mental healing,scholars have automatically taken artists' personal style and life as basic elements which help study the artists' works for a long time,yet maybe the artists' mental world and personal experience should be paid more attention to in every way when analyzing a piece of work.Through psychoanalytic methods,we can see the origin of the creation.By discussing about Frida's life experience,regional culture,sexual orientation as well as wars during her lifetime,this essay explores her mental world from the angle of psychoanalytic studies,and makes a deeper study on her mental world and connotative meaning through analyzing the mental world reflected from her works' artistic symbols.No matter pain or marriage,Aztec culture or Mexican war,or even her bisexual temperament,these external factors and their influence on her mental world deeply affected her creation.Some artistic symbols like heart,blood,skeleton,animals which appear in her work over and over again would be objects analyzed in this essay.And these symbols would prove artistic creation could erase artists' mental pressure to some extent.We can't deny that the shocking on Frida's physical and mental world brought by her suffering life didn't hinder her to be an artist,it became her forceto create instead.Her masterpieces with strong visual impact are telling her entire life in the freest way.Canvas to her is like a listener with great patience at her disposal,bringing relief to her mental world when creating,soothing her restless mind and soul.It is difficult for us to study the theory of “whether artists should make use of mental trauma to get inspiration and develop their own creation”,however,we can say for sure that Frida's experience and works provide us with good material to explore the artist's mental world and its connotation.And also,the research on the presentation of Frida's works and its internal relationship would make a positive impact on creators of the painting art.This essay is divided into five chapters.The first and the second chapters will sort out the major research background of Frida and the psychoanalytic theory to ensure the starting point and standard of our discussion.The third and the fourth chapters will focus on analyzing the spiritual reflection of symbols in Frida's works in detail.And the fifth chapter will be the summary of the whole essay.