What The Water Gave Me Analysis

Born to a photographer and a housewife, Kahlo grew up in the small, Mexican city of Coyoacán. With no original aspiration to become an artist, a series of unfortunate events would shape and mold her into becoming one of the best surrealists of her time, and arguably ever. What the Water Gave Me (see Appendix A), also known as What I Saw in the Water is one of the most renowned pieces by artist, Frida Kahlo for it’s usage of symbolism which gives the viewer insight into much of Frida’s personal life including: her family,political views, and sexual orientation. Frida paints both her mother and father in the painting, in a manner which resembles another work entitled, My Grandparents, My Parents, and I(see Appendix B), a piece about the dynamics and structure of her family. The history of Kahlo’s birth date and family lineage is one cloaked in mystery and skepticism.Kahlo claimed Hungarian history, but it has been revealed that her father actually came from a long line of German Lutherans. Frida came from a large family, and was one of four children born to Matilde Calderón y González and Guillermo Kahlo. Frida’s father was born in Germany under the name of Carl Wilhelm Kahlo. Art ran in the family, and Wilhelm’s parents were also artists. When he was just nineteen years old, Wilhelm sailed to Mexico and changed his name from Wilhelm to Guillermo. Frida never forgot her German heritage and during the rise of Hitler and extreme anti semitism in Europe, especially in Germany Frida began to change the way her name was spelled to Frieda, an allusion to the word for “peace” in German, “Frieden” and to subdue the embarrassment of being German caused by Hitler’s atrocious acts during the the Holocaust,she acknowledged her German lineage, but also claimed Jewish ancestry to help offset her guilt. Kahlo stated that she was born in 1910, the year of the Mexican revolution , synching her birth with the birth of Modern Mexico, but historians place her actual birth date to be a few years earlier in 1907. Frida often tells about gunshots waking up her and her sleeping siblings or how her mother used to feed revolutionary soldiers who hopped over the fence of their home in search for a place of solace and somewhere to hide. Her revolutionary artwork, reflected the political turmoil she grew up around. In What The Water Gave Me Frida demonstrates the struggle with a skyscraper burning inside of a volcano towards the bottom right corner. Some believe that the structure is the Empire State building which represents “ America” and a “ New, forward way of thinking” clashing with old, Mexican views which are represented by the volcano. What The Water Gave Me is said to encompass the that she had and lost. In the painting her legs are barely visible but her feet are prominent and we can see that her right foot is bloody and deformed, this stems from actual childhood events. When she was just six years old, Kahlo developed a severe case of polio. The polio left her right leg noticeably thinner than her left leg.Frida was somewhat insecure about this issue, and wore very long skirts and dresses in efforts to conceal the oddity. Her bodily issues did not …show more content…
What the piece lacks in traditional beauty, it makes up for in gritty detail and emotional storytelling. Kahlo never considered herself to be a surrealist painter nor her work surrealist pieces because her painting came from her own reality and truth. Kahlo painted dualities that she knew best, life vs death, heartache vs love, her Mexican heritage and her European heritage that she was so proud of. Frida painted for much more than outlet of self expression, while it was important to get all of her feelings out Kahlo’s painted also acted as tools to the communist movement, a task she was more than happy with carrying out. Kahlo never conformed to social standards in her paintings, or in real life and did what very few people dared to do- be openly bisexual and reference this in her paintings with love scenes between two women. Art was an important part in Frida’s love up until the very day she committed suicide in