Essay on Spanish Art

Submitted By starrshine07
Words: 1999
Pages: 8

Spanish Research Paper Spanish culture is very lush, vibrant, and full of life and death. There are many artists through time that have played a significant role in contributing to Spanish culture. Frida Rivera and Pablo Picasso being among two of the most famous names among Spanish art had a great impact upon society. Both artists’ art was filled with many emotions such as pain, happiness, and depression. Both Frida Rivera and Pablo Picasso poured their emotions onto canvas.
Frida Kahlo de Rivera, born just a year before the Ford T model, made a major impact on the Spanish culture through her various paintings and is still admired, celebrated and studied today in many places around the world. Mostly through self-portraits, she became famous through utilizing her ability to connect with her audience on a deeper emotional level. With the use of colors, never dull but full of vibrant and bright hues, she depicted her pain and her passion. Frida was born in Coyoacan, to a family of four sisters in a beautiful and diverse heritage, mixing Jewish-Hungarian, Spanish and Mexican Indian descent making her legendary diverse face, and her bold uni-brow an international icon. Frida did not plan on becoming an artist, let alone one of the most universally admired female artists. Having a life full of tragic events, Frida was placed through many painful health and emotional problems including her encounter with Polio. This destroyed a large portion of the muscle in one of her legs, leaving it permanently damaged. At the young and vibrant age of 18, Frida was crucially injured from the result of a bus accident. Recovering in bed from fractures to her spine, collarbone, ribs, and a shattered pelvis along with other serious injuries, it was required she endure over thirty operations. Frida was placed on bed rest for a little over a year. What would cause many young women to lose all hope, Frida drew inspiration from. Frida took all those reasons that would cause many to give up on life, and threw her heart onto canvas. In one of her many quotes, she beautifully explains, “I am not sick. I am not broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint", and with these words the true depth of her strength is verbalized.
Without the tragic events that occurred in Frida’s life, the majority of her art would be missing in our culture. Frida took her tragedy, and turned it into a masterpiece, in fact, turned it into multiple masterpieces. This incredible woman only lived to the unfortunate age of 47, but in this short life she withstood these tragic afflictions, normally breaking most people. She somehow managed to rise above it all through her raw, sarcastic, bold and enduring sense of self view. Frida being stricken with polio at 18, as well being hit by a bus causing her body to almost deteriorate, managed to survive even without the medical advances of today. Along with these two majorly devastating events, her artwork, which included two hundred pieces, was also inflicted by her very adulterous and profane lifestyle. Frida held a lifestyle that was very self-indulgent, opposing most of the doctrine that was held by the religion she was raised with. She married Diego Rivera who happened to be a famous Mexican muralist, whom was also twenty years older than she. This age difference made for a difficult and rocky marriage between the two lovers. Through all the infidelities, egos regarding the high standard in career, divorce, remarriage, Frida's scandalous bi-sexual affairs, insufficient health and infertility, the marriage never succumbed to a final end. Spanish culture though, was affected by all of her tragedy because whatever affected Frida showed in her various artworks. This influenced people and therefore sculpted a portion of today’s culture among other artists such as Pablo Picasso.
Originating from Spain, Pablo Picasso was an extraordinary painter. In 1881 he was born in Malagai and could draw before he could speak. His work was and is