What is art? 艺术是什么？

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain artwork to potential customers.

NEW AGE ARTIST: In 1953, when Frida Kahlo had her first solo exhibition in Mexico, a local critic wrote: "It is impossible to separate the life and work of this extraordinary person. Her paintings are her biography. Frida Kahlo is an artist whose life is vividly represented in her art. She used paint and canvas to create a colorful, yet painful image of her life. Today, the works of Frida Kahlo are internationally recognized.

NEW AGE ARTIST1: Her paintings are famous for their vibrant colors, personal symbolism, and the influence of her unique Mexican culture. They reflect the deep suffering she felt throughout her lifetime; physical suffering due to chronic pain, and emotional suffering due to her turbulent relationship with her husband, Diego Rivera. When Frida was a young woman, she was involved in a bus accident. The accident would cause her to experience physical pain for the rest of her life. It was during her long recovery, when she was confined to her bed, that she began to paint.

FRIDA: I paint self portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

NEW AGE ARTIST: Frida's first painting was a self portrait, which she painted while she was recovering. During her lifetime she made over 14 paintings, including over 5 self portraits, many of them in a surrealist style, using symbolism to express her pain and anguish. Unlike the surrealists, however, she was not interested in the dream world. She claimed that her paintings were better described as realism rather than surrealism, because to Frida, these paintings reflected her own reality.

FRIDA: They thought I was a surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.

NEW AGE ARTIST: In 1929, she married the Mexican painter, Diego Rivera. It would be a turbulent relationship and the passion and pain of their marriage is reflected in many of her paintings. The famous portrait 'The Two Fridas' is a classic example of how she expressed her emotions towards Diego on canvas. This double self portrait of two different Fridas was painted just after Diego and Frida divorced. The Frida on the right is the Frida that Diego once loved while the other Frida is the Frida that Diego betrayed and rejected.

FRIDA: There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.

NEW AGE ARTIST: Frida and Diego would divorce, but then remarry. Their relationship continued to be turbulent, but they remained married until her death in 1954. In the last year of her life, Frida became very ill, and she had many operations. Her last painting was a still life called 'Viva la Vida', which means Live the Life. A few days before she died on July 13th she wrote in her diary.

FRIDA: I hope the exit is joyful, and I hope never to return, Frida.