¶ … Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo influenced each other's work and how their lives were related to their work

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo had one of the most stormy and artistically productive romantic relationships in the history of art. Rivera was noted for works that merged the genres of social realism and fantasy. He created sprawling, primitive, fantastic Mexican murals. "He decided that he wanted to create paintings which would speak directly to the common people. Active in the socialist revolution in Mexico, he felt that art could play a part in this by educating the Mexicans about their history. His public murals illustrate Hispanic culture's proud pre-Columbian past, their conquest by the Spanish, the conversion from their native religion to Catholicism, the submission of the working class by agricultural tyrannies, and the Mexican Revolution" ("Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo," Eyeconart, 2009).

Rivera's wife Frida Kahlo was also a primitivist, but her works were of a more subjective nature than her husband's. Unlike Rivera, who extolled the ability of the Mexican Industrial Revolution to set workers free, Kahlo's images were symbolic of her personal pain and suffering. She used bright colors and flat, deliberately naturalistic images in the colors of the Mexican earth to create a private symbolic language that communicated her physical difficulties. Kahlo was in almost constant pain, due to a childhood bout with polio and a bus accident that nearly killed her as a teenager ("Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo," Eyeconart, 2009). Her marriage to Rivera, which ended in divorce, was also a frequent subject of her raw, unsparing works of art. This is unsurprising given Rivera's volatile personality and frequent infidelities.

Kahlo's preferred subject matter was herself: she did not desire to fashion a sweeping panorama that attempted to speak for all of the Mexican people. Kahlo aimed to speak for herself alone. But she created works of art that her viewers could connect with on a personal level. When comparing the husband and wife's works of art, Rivera's works seem stuffed with action, have complicated designs, and are often teeming with different focal points. Kahlo's, in contrast, usually have a single focal point -- often Frida herself -- and make use of maternal as well as nationalistic symbolism.

Works Cited

"Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo." Eyeconart. October 10, 2009.

http://www.eyeconart.net/history/frida-y-diego.htm