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Self-Portraits for Women's Equality

'Paula Modersohn-Becker and Frida Kahlo responded to women's equality through self-portraits...'

By Jasmine SanchezPublished 6 years ago 11 min read
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(Left) Paula Modersohn-Becker, Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace, 1906. Oil on canvas, 61 cm x 50.2 cm (24 in x 19 3/4 in). Private Collection. (Right) Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940. Oil on canvas, 61.25 cm x 47 cm (24.11 in x 18.5 in). Nickolas Muray Collection. 

Germany and Mexico sit on two different ends of the world, yet Paula Modersohn-Becker and Frida Kahlo responded to women's equality through self-portraits. Modersohn-Becker was a German painter who painted Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace in 1906. "[She became one of] the first modern woman artist to challenge centuries of traditional representation of the female body in art.” On the contrary, Kahlo was a Mexican painter who painted Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird in 1940. “[Similar to Paula, Frida was] one of the women to fully express herself through art, a feminist putting women’s issues at the forefront of her work.” The analysis of Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace and Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird will focus on the representation of the female body, cultural perception, and art style to show that the works of their art changed the rules, broke barriers, and challenged the status quo through their self-portraits for women's equality.

Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace by Modersohn-Becker is a painting of herself pregnant facing the viewer while nude. She is framed in a frontal position from the stomach and up. Paula paints her skin tone in warm colors using tan and pinkish hues. Brighter pink is used to emphasize her nipples. Around her neck lies a brown amber necklace that sits over her breast. In the background, she painted dark green leaves and some red and white florals that complement her body tones. To engage with the audience, she paints herself holding two pink flowers with a bright green stem in her hands. In addition, she uses bluish undertones to enhance the features in her eyes. Her posture tilting to the side seems like she is expressing sexuality but in naturality, she is asserting herself in the frame.

Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird by Kahlo is also a painting of herself. However, she is not nude or pregnant. Frida faces her viewer in a frontal position from the waist and up, taking up the majority of the painting. She uses tan, light brown, and pinkish hues to convey her skin tones. Frida wears a pure white short sleeve shirt to cover her body. On top of the shirt and around her neck is a necklace made out of thorns that has a hummingbird attached to it. The humming bird is seen to be dead because it is painted black and lifeless. The thorns pierce her neck by her painting red drops of blood running down the neck. On her face, she darkens her mustache and unplucked eyebrows. To the left side of her shoulder lies a black small monkey and on the right side of her shoulder lies a black cat with yellow squinting eyes. Frida brightens her painting using a bust of bright color green leaves in the background. She distinguish the leaves with different patterns and textures.

In 1906 were the beginnings of the first wave of feminism where women were the minority that was fighting for change. In the same year, Modersohn-Becker painted Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace to change the rules in European representation of the female body. Women's nudity in early modern Europe made women “invariably oppressed, excluded, and marginalized… Women were viewed as inchoate or failed men.” Paula paints herself standing in front of a garden while nude. She is holding a flower and she slightly smiles, knowing that she is bare chested as she embraces her female body. Being the first pregnant women to paint herself nude changes traditional representation of the female body. “[W]omen and Sexuality in German political and cultural circles… the ‘good’ mother had become the focus of widespread concern about function in the family and in the perpetuation of the race. For [Paula]… to paint the nude body of the mother was to confront directly the contemporary inscription of gendered differences on the body.” Female nudity is powerful and Becker was able to paint her own bare body not as a sexual objectification but to show freedom of the female body. Her painting changed the European concept of seeing women as a sex object to the ultimate expression of woman’s emancipation.

Similar to Paula, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird by Kahlo has also changed the rules of Mexican representation of the female body. Frida painted her self-portrait in 1940s during the time when “conservative Catholic women is an established subspecialty in Mexican women’s history….[and] female activism in Mexico was … [in] defense of traditional gender roles.” However, Frida wasn’t scared to change the Mexican Catholic conservative beauty dilemma of women's sexuality. Frida kept her mustache and un-plucked eyebrows in her Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird painting. In Karin Lesnik-Oberstein’s book The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair, she claimed that “signifier such as ‘hair’ is too bound to notions of sexuality and gender” to Kahlo’s painting. Frida gave us the Feminism idea of women having the power to choose what they can do with their own bodies. Like Becker’s painting, Frida's painting was able to show freedom of the female body by rejecting the conservative ideas of beauty and grew a mustache and unibrow to protest these standards of beauty.

Furthermore, Paula has also broken barriers by using European cultural perceptions in her art to fight for women's equality. Modersohn-Becker paints herself only wearing an amber necklace that rests between her breasts. In Europe at the time, it is believed that the amber necklace is to comfort babies when they are teething. “Amber products are sold in local pharmacies in many European countries including Switzerland, Germany, and Austria where Amber has been respected for its medicinal qualities for centuries.” As Paula is wearing her amber necklace representing motherhood outside naked, she is dealing with the interface between public and private lives. “[In Germany,] feminists of the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century often gloried motherhood as the basis of women’s claim to dignity, equality, or a widened sphere of action in both public and private spheres.” Paula uses her culture that believes that amber necklaces is for baby teething and applies it to equal women's rights though motherhood.

Similarly, Frida has also broken barriers by using Spanish Mexican cultural perceptions in her art to fight for women equality. In Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, Frida uses Mexican and Aztec symbols to express her pain as a feminist. Paula wasn’t the only one who uses a necklace as symbolism. Frida painted thorns around her neck as if it was used as a necklace. On it is a hummingbird that is hanging from the thorns laying on her throat. “[In] ancient Aztecs of central Mexico recognized the hummingbird… represented things like life, creation, inspiration and promise. Other central American cultures viewed the hummingbird as a symbol of love, sexuality and fertility.” However, in the painting, Frida paints the hummingbird black and dead. “This might be a symbol of Frida herself. Frida spent most of her life in physical pain after the bus accident happened when she was 18. After that she endured about 35 operations to fix her body. She spent so many years bedridden and cannot bear any children.” Feminists embrace their control of their reproductive rights and of their decision on whether they want to be pregnant or not and how they give birth. In this case, Frida is unable to become pregnant. “Women are defined by their ability to have a child, and when it doesn’t quite work out that way, whether it is by choice or miscarriage, our culture attaches a stigma and blame to them.” By Frida using the Mexican symbol of the hummingbird, she was brave to address the stigma and shame that is around miscarriages that plays a big part in reproductive rights and justice. Her painting is showing that she has experienced it and as a feminist is not scared of admitting it.

Lastly, Modersohn-Becker challenged the status quo of German Expressionism art style. German Expressionism is a movement based on the artist's emotion, feelings, or ideas that is simplified by shapes, colors, and brushstrokes. However, feminist interpretations like Paula's have changed the artistic tradition of German Expressionism. “[T]he Expressionist attitude toward women is indeed for the most part 'conservative.' It is conservative in its own unique and characteristic way…[t]he dominant tendency in Expressionist circles is to define the two sexes as polar opposites, which, moreover, function in highly distinct male and female social spheres.” Paula challenged the status quo of German Expressionism by providing the sensitive portrait of herself in Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace. Paula painting herself naked, especially pregnant while naked, was seen to be outside the norm. “[Her] self-portrait nudes universalize the images, but the careful scrutiny of the female body and the frank confrontation between the women and the artist fuse the issues of femaleness and creativity in new ways.” Her art has paved the way for future female artists because she broke the strict seclusion and lower status of women. Paula’s Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace is a piece of artwork that proves that women have the power to not be pressured to conform to the male-dominated art and conservative way by challenging the status quo of German Expressionism.

In addition, Kahlo has done the same by challenging the status quo of Surrealism art style. Surrealism is an philosophical movement that explores the mind, championing the irrational, poetic, and revolutionary. However comparable to Paula, Frida’s feminist interpretation has also changed the artistic tradition of Surrealism. “One point of controversy is to what extent female surrealists have been properly acknowledged. The… silence against female artists in general, this was even worse within surrealism because of its misogyny.” Unfortunately, Frida as well as other women artists had to work harder in order to be recognized compared to the male artist in Surrealism. Although her moment was brief and ambiguous in the surrealist movement, she was able to use her girl power to not be under the male dominate movement. She challenged the status quo of Surrealism by painting Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird of her psychological agony of not being able to have kids. “This in itself was commendable for she concentrated on her self-awareness and artistry in a society and a time that prohibited women from pursuing a career much less portraying aspects of women’s lives, such as abortions, which were considered wholly inappropriate topics.” Frida has become an art hero in the feminist community because of the way she changed the artistic tradition by challenging the status quo of Surrealism.

All in all, despite coming from two opposite parts of the world, they became international legends for women’s rights through art within their self-portraits. They showed that the works of their art changed the rules in both European and Mexican concepts of women's sexuality, broke barriers in European and Mexican concepts of culture, and challenged the status quo of surrealism and German Expressionism completely through feminism. They emphasized themselves as the subject and not as an object to establish awareness of women’s existence that male artist counterparts have failed to do. Without Paula Modersohn-Becker and Frida Kahlo, we would not have knowledge of women's objectification in art.

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