Why We Love Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo, center, in 1938. Left: her prosthetic leg with leather boot. Right: plaster corset painted by Frida Kahlo. © Diego Riviera and Frida Kahlo Archives, Banco de México; Nickolas Muray © The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art | Image source: theguardian.com

In 1954, self-taught Mexican artist Frida Kahlo died at the age of 47. But despite her short life, hundreds of admirers mourned and stood in the rain outside the Panteón Civil de Dolores where her funeral ceremony was held just before she was cremated. Why did so many love Frida? Because Frida loved Frida. Frida’s […]

Persistence of Memory in Surrealist Art

The Persistence of Memory (1931) by Salvador Dalí | Image source: phaidon.com

As an art movement that aimed to depict the subconscious, many critics found Surrealism unnerving and illogical. But that was exactly the point —an alternative mode of expression. The Surrealist art movement was founded and led by André Breton in 1924. He defined it as “psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes […]

The Allure of Esotericism in Art

Practiced throughout Asia, Egypt, and Europe from ancient era to high Renaissance time, the alchemy aspired philosophical and protoscientific culture had influenced everything from turning lead into gold, to creating an elixir for immortality for emperors. Just the word alchemy conjures up images of ancient pots of peculiar boiling liquids. But beyond the quests to […]