The two Fridas: the meaning behind the Mexican artist's most enigmatic and painful painting

The two Fridas: the meaning behind the Mexican artist's most enigmatic and painful painting

The two Fridas, this is what lies behind the most enigmatic picture of the Mexican artist, painted after the divorce from Diego Rivera.

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

All paintings by Frida Kahlo are enigmatic but one in particular has always aroused curiosity and is the painting "The two Fridas“, Self-portrait in which the artist portrays herself double, painted in a moment of great suffering after her divorce from her husband Diego, assigned on 28 December 1966 to the MAM, Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.





On the right a she dressed in a traditional Tehuana dress, holding the photo of her beloved in her hand, on the left Frida separated from Diego, in a white lace dress with more Western features. Two women who do not look at each other despite being seated next to each other. As if her soul were divided in half, one linked to tradition, the other more emancipated to symbolize, probably, the inner conflict between two parts of herself, united but also separated. A duplicity so dear to her art that it causes her pain, although it represents her essence so articulated and complex, a characteristic that makes her unique.

As often happens in his works, even here the internal organs are visible, and in this specific case it is hearts, an element that frequently returns in his paintings, also for the strong emotional and spiritual value. In the “Due Fridas” the heart on the right, of her in a Mexican dress with a photo of Diego in her hand, is intact and bright red, while that of her on the left with a scissor in her hand is broken and of a duller color.

To connect them an artery that is however broken by the artist herself with a surgical scissor, perhaps to symbolize the desire to sever the link with the past and her painful experience, which led her to divorce after yet another betrayal, the worst, consumed by Diego with his sister.

Separation lived tragically so much so that the two Fridas, the past and the present, despite being close do not look each other in the eye, to underline the distance between the colored Frida with a beating heart and the white one, pale, sad, destroyed by pain but also determined to end that experience.


Meaning of the picture

Ultimately, it seems that the artist in this painting has tried to express his emotional condition during the transition from one condition to another, from before to after, from the self in love to the new self determined to divorce even if in pain. Showing in his unique and unmistakable style how difficult it is to face the passages of life, especially when they require the abandonment of something and, therefore, also of a part of oneself.


How brilliant and courageous is Frida in this way of representing herself, in her ability to show her interiority without filters, not to be ashamed of her own complexity and fragility, telling herself through her art which, despite everything, pulsates with life.

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Photo Credit: Museum of Modern Art



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