We started this class by discussing Frida Kahlo. While often called a surrealist, Kahlo rejected that title. Stating that she painted her reality, not her dreams. We looked at her painting, The Two Fridas. In this painting, she depicts herself in two different manners, one that conformed to European beauty standards and one that conformed to traditional Mexican beauty standards. However, the hearts of the two Fridas are connected, showing how Frida Kahlo’s two identities fit together. There are also references to the trauma that Kahlo went through.
We moved on to De Stijl, or Neo-Plasticism, which aimed to achieve utopian ideals. Piet Mondrian’s painting, Composition en Rouge, is a stand out example of De Stijl. The painting is reduced to primary colors and horizontal lines. While asymmetrical, the painting is still balanced. Mondrian seeked prefection and harmony through geometric abstraction. The trend of reducing shapes to their most basic form also found its way into architecture. For example, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoge reduced three dimensional shapes into their basic form. We finished class by talking about Post-War art, mainly abstract expressionism. This took shape in many forms through action painting and gestural abstraction, as well as chromatic abstraction.