| BARRIOZONA |
| Bilingual Community Expression Published by the Hispanic Institute of Social Issues |
| fridakahlo |
| 1907 - 2007 100th Birth Anniversary |
| The Blue House |
| a BARRIOZONA special from Mexico City |
| Text and Photographs by Eduardo Barraza BARRIOZONA Editor |
In the patio of a big house in the Town of Coyoacán, in the south side of Mexico City, where many years ago the
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo would walk with her peculiar and long dresses, a lively concert of natural sounds —
melodic bird calls, the waterfall of a fountain, the strumming of a guitar— blend into one single harmony, creating a
soft and tranquil atmosphere. The exuberant vegetation of the garden impresses with its varied range, alternating
with the vibrant paint colors of walls, floors, and other surfaces. Colors all alive, evoking the brilliance and intensity
of those captured by Frida on the canvases, where she leaped from the privacy of her daily pain to the worldwide
immortality of her art. The Blue House —as the house is called— is a century-old cultural magnet of charming,
artistic, and morbid appeal that draws people from all over the world to its famous location. There Frida was born
and died; Frida the artist was inspired and painted; Frida the legend unfolded.
The Blue House is the —almost mythical— place where the clock of Frida’s life began and where it also stopped.
Today it signifies not only the dwelling where the artist lived her brief, painful and tempestuous life, but also a
sanctuary in which art flows from nature itself, as well as from the pictorial expression —in many ways alive— of the
woman who dwelled in it. The character, the artist, the human being that Frida was, captured in such a way a
unique artistic sentiment that, though not easy to explain and articulate, unleashed an interest which in turn
founded the culture and mystique of its fascination. A seduction that attracts thousands of people today from
diverse parts of the world to this house.
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo would walk with her peculiar and long dresses, a lively concert of natural sounds —
melodic bird calls, the waterfall of a fountain, the strumming of a guitar— blend into one single harmony, creating a
soft and tranquil atmosphere. The exuberant vegetation of the garden impresses with its varied range, alternating
with the vibrant paint colors of walls, floors, and other surfaces. Colors all alive, evoking the brilliance and intensity
of those captured by Frida on the canvases, where she leaped from the privacy of her daily pain to the worldwide
immortality of her art. The Blue House —as the house is called— is a century-old cultural magnet of charming,
artistic, and morbid appeal that draws people from all over the world to its famous location. There Frida was born
and died; Frida the artist was inspired and painted; Frida the legend unfolded.
The Blue House is the —almost mythical— place where the clock of Frida’s life began and where it also stopped.
Today it signifies not only the dwelling where the artist lived her brief, painful and tempestuous life, but also a
sanctuary in which art flows from nature itself, as well as from the pictorial expression —in many ways alive— of the
woman who dwelled in it. The character, the artist, the human being that Frida was, captured in such a way a
unique artistic sentiment that, though not easy to explain and articulate, unleashed an interest which in turn
founded the culture and mystique of its fascination. A seduction that attracts thousands of people today from
diverse parts of the world to this house.
Whether it be in the tall walls
painted in an iridescent blue that
impregnates the vision with
boldness, whether through the
double French doors from where
Frida’s eyes entered the garden,
or by the nooks where her
memories appear and hide,
visitors possessed by a,
sometimes obsessive Fridamania,
try to find existential drafts that
would paint for them a Frida —half
reality, half fantasy—to conceive
her, to know her, to understand
her, and to appreciate her. With
their sight, visitors comb the
vestiges of the artist’s privacy:
there are her paintings, her
personal diary, her typical dresses,
objects that give testimony of her
talent, and others that give away
her prolonged suffering. Both her
artistic creation and pain —Frida
creator of art, Frida prostrated to
pain— express silently and
painted in an iridescent blue that
impregnates the vision with
boldness, whether through the
double French doors from where
Frida’s eyes entered the garden,
or by the nooks where her
memories appear and hide,
visitors possessed by a,
sometimes obsessive Fridamania,
try to find existential drafts that
would paint for them a Frida —half
reality, half fantasy—to conceive
her, to know her, to understand
her, and to appreciate her. With
their sight, visitors comb the
vestiges of the artist’s privacy:
there are her paintings, her
personal diary, her typical dresses,
objects that give testimony of her
talent, and others that give away
her prolonged suffering. Both her
artistic creation and pain —Frida
creator of art, Frida prostrated to
pain— express silently and
discreetly the plastic dimension of a woman in the same way that emanates her affliction. Easels, paintbrushes, and
artworks struggle and collide against the plaster-cast corset, the wheelchair, the prosthesis of her leg.
Step by step, thousands of people go round the old Blue House and its big garden, that unlike the lifeless volcanic
stone of the dwelling’s structure, it incessantly renews with new flowers and rookie birds. The voice of children
visitors rejuvenate the old structure and replace with their contemporary echoes the lost resonance of the voices
that in the past inhabited this house. The stone of the house quiets, the water of the fountain laughs; the ancient
pre-Columbian idol contemplates with indifference, the new flower emerges with satisfaction; the bars of the
balconies lock in, and the greenness of the plants liberate. On the whole, all and every one of the elements of the
Blue House encloses —in a circumference of attraction and awe— the revealed truth of an artist that died to
become immortalized. Her life, just like the volcanic stone of this big house, does not become renewed; her art, on
the other hand, recreates and grows, like the trees of her garden. The Blue House is not magic; it is art. Frida is not
a ghost, she is an artistic reality.
Watched over with annoying distrust, Frida’s belongings —and those of her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera—
allow visitors to glance at the sometimes euphoric, sometimes unfortunate, world of a woman to whom the
accidental conditions of her life and the subsequent physical pain, lighted up a creative flame that stirred up the fire
of art. Wounded in her overwhelmed body, she intensified the paintbrush to yell out her affliction to the world from
the privacy of a house that today is exposed to the entire world. Frida’s intimate pain, reflected in her incomparable
artworks, yelled out from her bedroom, jumped out from the balcony of her window, came out of the Blue House,
flung into the streets, dared to travel across cities, to cross oceans, and to conquer countries. Pain prostrated her;
she prostrated pain with her art.
Through the big, tall and green front door where they came in, visitors leave the Blue House of Frida Kahlo. On the
sidewalk made of old paving stone, the same intense blue color that welcomed them bids them farewell. In another
time, Frida herself would walk through this same big tall door, and on this same street. However, today Frida’s art
enters through more spacious doors, travels across wide streets, and lodges in more luxurious and great galleries,
far away from her native Coyoacán. In this metaphoric sense, Frida walks again and on paths she never dreamed
of. This, her great success, is no accident. Invulnerable and by the hand of her art, Frida amazes the world,
triumphs compellingly, and she does it without any pain.
artworks struggle and collide against the plaster-cast corset, the wheelchair, the prosthesis of her leg.
Step by step, thousands of people go round the old Blue House and its big garden, that unlike the lifeless volcanic
stone of the dwelling’s structure, it incessantly renews with new flowers and rookie birds. The voice of children
visitors rejuvenate the old structure and replace with their contemporary echoes the lost resonance of the voices
that in the past inhabited this house. The stone of the house quiets, the water of the fountain laughs; the ancient
pre-Columbian idol contemplates with indifference, the new flower emerges with satisfaction; the bars of the
balconies lock in, and the greenness of the plants liberate. On the whole, all and every one of the elements of the
Blue House encloses —in a circumference of attraction and awe— the revealed truth of an artist that died to
become immortalized. Her life, just like the volcanic stone of this big house, does not become renewed; her art, on
the other hand, recreates and grows, like the trees of her garden. The Blue House is not magic; it is art. Frida is not
a ghost, she is an artistic reality.
Watched over with annoying distrust, Frida’s belongings —and those of her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera—
allow visitors to glance at the sometimes euphoric, sometimes unfortunate, world of a woman to whom the
accidental conditions of her life and the subsequent physical pain, lighted up a creative flame that stirred up the fire
of art. Wounded in her overwhelmed body, she intensified the paintbrush to yell out her affliction to the world from
the privacy of a house that today is exposed to the entire world. Frida’s intimate pain, reflected in her incomparable
artworks, yelled out from her bedroom, jumped out from the balcony of her window, came out of the Blue House,
flung into the streets, dared to travel across cities, to cross oceans, and to conquer countries. Pain prostrated her;
she prostrated pain with her art.
Through the big, tall and green front door where they came in, visitors leave the Blue House of Frida Kahlo. On the
sidewalk made of old paving stone, the same intense blue color that welcomed them bids them farewell. In another
time, Frida herself would walk through this same big tall door, and on this same street. However, today Frida’s art
enters through more spacious doors, travels across wide streets, and lodges in more luxurious and great galleries,
far away from her native Coyoacán. In this metaphoric sense, Frida walks again and on paths she never dreamed
of. This, her great success, is no accident. Invulnerable and by the hand of her art, Frida amazes the world,
triumphs compellingly, and she does it without any pain.
| Hispanic Institute of Social Issues © 2006-2007 All rights reserved. webmaster@hisi.org |
barriozona.com
| On the bed where the Mexican painter passed away in 1954, her mortuary mask rests wrapped in a rebozo or cloak. In this same bedroom is the urn containing the artist’s ashes. |
| INTERACTIVE |
| Photographs by Eduardo Barraza HISI © 2007 |
Frida Kahlo July 6 1907 July 13, 1954 Mexican painter The Blue House La Casa Azul indigenous culture Realism Symbolism Surrealism communist Mexican muralist cubist painter Diego Rivera self-portraits physical pain suffering symbolism Coyoacán Mexico museum and Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón La Casa Azul The Blue House freida kalo calo kahlo kalho pintora Mexicana museofridakahlo casaazul.html