Frida Kahlo was an incredibly talented and influential artist of the 20th century. She was best known for her self-portraits, which used vibrant colours and were relentless. Her art often followed themes such as: death, human anatomy, and personal identity. In her diaries/journals Frida recorded her dreams, wrote down her thoughts for the most part but there were also random poems found. Frida also used these as sketchbooks, which she used for some of her enchanting illustrations.
Her writing and keeping of a diary also helped her to establish a relationship with herself, she used it as a way of expressing her afflictions during the final 10 years of her life.
Exactly like her paintings Frida used colours as a reference in her writing, for example she used blue for electricity and purity, while the colour yellow was used to represent "madness, illness, fear, part of the sun, and happiness." She was very open, honest and vulnerable in terms of her writing and confided her deepest emotions within the pages. She wrote about childhood trauma left from her suffering from polio. The sketches in her diary were all very spur of the moment, bursts of inspirations in which she drew what she was feeling at that exact moment.
Her diaries give us little snippets into what she was like, her political and social interests as well as showing reference towards André Breton’s Surrealist movement, even though she denied any claims that she was in fact a surrealist. Also included within the pages was a sketch of two feet accompanied with what would become to be one of her most well-known phrases “Feet, what do I need you for if I have wings to fly?” This entry was made shortly after the amputation of her right leg, the one that was affected by polio.
Frida Kahlo was nothing short of extraordinary, her creativity and raw emotion put in her art helps so many people connect to her art and her journals in a way almost too familiar. She used them to help support her mental health and unload any emotional turmoil she was going through at the time of entry. Her journals will definitely continue to entrance the minds of many and show us the importance of why journaling is such a supporting hobby to help you unload in terms of mental clarity and help with improving mental health.
