Frida's shame
Having just returned from Mexico City, a trip which included a visit to the Frida Kahlo house (Casa Azul), I feel obligated to describe something which I wouldn't have noted had I not just got done reviewing some of the "reviews" of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism.
One of Goldberg's claims is that the Progressive Era progressives were just as nationalist as the national socialists who came later. Again, I haven't read the book, so I can neither endorse nor deny his claims, but it seems plausible. However, there is no denying the odd mixture of Mexicanism and Marxism in the work of both Frida and her husband, Diego Rivera.
I already knew that they were communists. In Rivera's mural in the Palacio Nacional, utopia flows both literally and figuratively from Das Kapital. What I found more shocking were the final works of Frida herself. The one upon the easel at her death was a large bust portrait of Stalin superimposed with a self-portrait, titled "Stalin and I". A slightly older work showed angelic hands emanating from Karl Marx' head to comfort Frida while an evil looking Uncle Sam Bird flew nearby; this one was called "Marxism Heals the Sick".
The Stalin homage is clearly the more shocking. This was a portrait from the early 1950s, at which point it was surely known that Stalin had been responsible for millions of deaths, rivaling or surpassing Hitler's death count. And it must have been plain that Stalin was behind the murder of their friend, Leon Trotsky. So why the worship?
A few conjectures may be ventured. First, Frida and Trotsky were reputed to have had an affair. Certainly, this was not the first such event that interrupted the tempestuous relationship between her and her notoriously womanizing husband. However, they reconciled thereafter and it seems possible that she adopted her husband's new-found rejection of Trotsky. Such a rejection may have originated in jealousy, but it is easy to see how, once the blinders fell, that he might begin looking for ideological as well as personal reasons to oppose the fallen Russian leader. And as we have seen in so many contexts, people are frequently animated more by opposition than by alliance, so it doesn't seem too far-fetched that Rivera could fall in league with the Stalinist Trotsky-haters. At some point, there may even have been an element of self-promotion as they claimed to have participated in the plot to kill him. The final conjecture involves Frida's mental deterioration at this point in her life as the result of her constant pain and use of pain-killers.
How did such a person become the object of so much recent fawning attention? I was surprised to learn that one of the reasons was Madonna's interest in her art. This led to the development of a movie project in which Salma Hayek eventually won the role, but for which Madonna was an early contender. It would have been a much worse movie with Madonna in the lead (Madonna did appear in a minor role). The Stalin worship was but a footnote to her life, and was completely ignored in the movie (from what I remember).
Frida and Diego were very clearly nationalists, though. This may have been partly in reaction to the Great Satan to the North, whose involvement in Latin American politics began with the Monroe Doctrine, peaked in theWar of Northern Aggression North American Intervention United States Invasion Mexican-Amerian War of 1846-1848, and subsequently included interventions in just about every country south of our border, a total realization of Marxist claims about imperialism. [1] Their Mexican nationalism may have also been an affectation to cover their own origins and "sins", she being of German and native/Spanish descent and he being fond of international travel, study, and patronage by notorious capitalists including Rockefeller and Ford.
We can see less obvious indications of their nationalism in several ways. Frida overemphasized her facial hair in her self-portraits in order to emphasize her native origins. Despite her cosmopolitan upbringing and marriage to an inveterate international traveller, she stuck to traditional dresses and household decorations. Diego, for his part, was a tireless chronicler of Mexican history, producing works that mimicked the Aztec codex style of story-telling and giving birth to the Mexican muralism style.
A more prominent statement of their nationalism is the frequent recurrence of the Xoloitzcuintli, or Mexican Hairless Dog, in both their personal lives and their artwork. The dogs are small, black, hairless, and quintessentially Mexican, having been originally domesticated by the Aztecs. The dog can be seen in each of the pre-Spanish mural panels in the Palacio Nacional mural as part of the idyllic village life. When the Spaniards show up, the dogs snarl defensively at their European counterparts, and when the Europeans begin human trafficking in natives, the dogs become sickly and skeletal.
But nationalism is anathema to true Marxists, is it not? Well, yes, but then this seems to be one of those things Marx got terribly wrong. A Mexican painter has far more in common with a Mexican cab driver than with an American painter because language, culture, and other sources of personal identity are much stronger than class. Does this make Kahlo and Garcia bad people or bad artists? No, only bad Marxists (a charge which is only strengthened by their support of the antidemocratic Stalin).
And what of their unabashed support for the murderous dictator? In Latin America, where Che calendars are sold openly [2], perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by their embrace of brutal dictators. But we should be aware of it. Octavio Paz concluded about this issue,
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[1] We were pointedly reminded of the "1847 war" by a guide at the Palacio. I had thought it was 1848, but decided not to pursue it upon recalling that Americans are wisely counseled to avoid discussions about American foreign policy when traveling abroad: they generally know more about it than you do because they have been the victims of it. Several tourist sites stress that you should never talk politics in Mexico because it is expressly against the law for foreigners to participate in Mexican politics. Guess why.
[2] I was so tempted to ask if they also carried calendars with Mengele or Himmler. Murderers are murderers, the nature of the intent matters little to the victims.
One of Goldberg's claims is that the Progressive Era progressives were just as nationalist as the national socialists who came later. Again, I haven't read the book, so I can neither endorse nor deny his claims, but it seems plausible. However, there is no denying the odd mixture of Mexicanism and Marxism in the work of both Frida and her husband, Diego Rivera.
I already knew that they were communists. In Rivera's mural in the Palacio Nacional, utopia flows both literally and figuratively from Das Kapital. What I found more shocking were the final works of Frida herself. The one upon the easel at her death was a large bust portrait of Stalin superimposed with a self-portrait, titled "Stalin and I". A slightly older work showed angelic hands emanating from Karl Marx' head to comfort Frida while an evil looking Uncle Sam Bird flew nearby; this one was called "Marxism Heals the Sick".
The Stalin homage is clearly the more shocking. This was a portrait from the early 1950s, at which point it was surely known that Stalin had been responsible for millions of deaths, rivaling or surpassing Hitler's death count. And it must have been plain that Stalin was behind the murder of their friend, Leon Trotsky. So why the worship?
A few conjectures may be ventured. First, Frida and Trotsky were reputed to have had an affair. Certainly, this was not the first such event that interrupted the tempestuous relationship between her and her notoriously womanizing husband. However, they reconciled thereafter and it seems possible that she adopted her husband's new-found rejection of Trotsky. Such a rejection may have originated in jealousy, but it is easy to see how, once the blinders fell, that he might begin looking for ideological as well as personal reasons to oppose the fallen Russian leader. And as we have seen in so many contexts, people are frequently animated more by opposition than by alliance, so it doesn't seem too far-fetched that Rivera could fall in league with the Stalinist Trotsky-haters. At some point, there may even have been an element of self-promotion as they claimed to have participated in the plot to kill him. The final conjecture involves Frida's mental deterioration at this point in her life as the result of her constant pain and use of pain-killers.
How did such a person become the object of so much recent fawning attention? I was surprised to learn that one of the reasons was Madonna's interest in her art. This led to the development of a movie project in which Salma Hayek eventually won the role, but for which Madonna was an early contender. It would have been a much worse movie with Madonna in the lead (Madonna did appear in a minor role). The Stalin worship was but a footnote to her life, and was completely ignored in the movie (from what I remember).
Frida and Diego were very clearly nationalists, though. This may have been partly in reaction to the Great Satan to the North, whose involvement in Latin American politics began with the Monroe Doctrine, peaked in the
We can see less obvious indications of their nationalism in several ways. Frida overemphasized her facial hair in her self-portraits in order to emphasize her native origins. Despite her cosmopolitan upbringing and marriage to an inveterate international traveller, she stuck to traditional dresses and household decorations. Diego, for his part, was a tireless chronicler of Mexican history, producing works that mimicked the Aztec codex style of story-telling and giving birth to the Mexican muralism style.
A more prominent statement of their nationalism is the frequent recurrence of the Xoloitzcuintli, or Mexican Hairless Dog, in both their personal lives and their artwork. The dogs are small, black, hairless, and quintessentially Mexican, having been originally domesticated by the Aztecs. The dog can be seen in each of the pre-Spanish mural panels in the Palacio Nacional mural as part of the idyllic village life. When the Spaniards show up, the dogs snarl defensively at their European counterparts, and when the Europeans begin human trafficking in natives, the dogs become sickly and skeletal.
But nationalism is anathema to true Marxists, is it not? Well, yes, but then this seems to be one of those things Marx got terribly wrong. A Mexican painter has far more in common with a Mexican cab driver than with an American painter because language, culture, and other sources of personal identity are much stronger than class. Does this make Kahlo and Garcia bad people or bad artists? No, only bad Marxists (a charge which is only strengthened by their support of the antidemocratic Stalin).
And what of their unabashed support for the murderous dictator? In Latin America, where Che calendars are sold openly [2], perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by their embrace of brutal dictators. But we should be aware of it. Octavio Paz concluded about this issue,
Diego and Frida ought not to be subjects of beatification but objects of study--and of repentance . . . the weaknesses, taints, and defects that show up in the works of Diego and Frida are moral in origin. The two of them betrayed their great gifts, and this can be seen in their painting. An artist may commit political errors and even common crimes, but the truly great artists--Villon or Pound, Caravaggio or Goya--pay for their mistakes and thereby redeem their art and their honor.
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[1] We were pointedly reminded of the "1847 war" by a guide at the Palacio. I had thought it was 1848, but decided not to pursue it upon recalling that Americans are wisely counseled to avoid discussions about American foreign policy when traveling abroad: they generally know more about it than you do because they have been the victims of it. Several tourist sites stress that you should never talk politics in Mexico because it is expressly against the law for foreigners to participate in Mexican politics. Guess why.
[2] I was so tempted to ask if they also carried calendars with Mengele or Himmler. Murderers are murderers, the nature of the intent matters little to the victims.
