Luke Thorne's Photography Blog: Telling Tales

For this project we was in groups and had to look into a piece of art, and then analyze why and what it was the piece narrated to us before we actually found out the reasoning behind it was. Our group got given a painting by Frida Kahlo, called 'The Two Fridas'.

I initially knew quite a bit about the painting as i have looked into art quite extensively in the past, so i could identify whom the painting was by, roughly when and what media is was done on. I also more or less remember what the painting was of. 'The Two Fridas' is a painting done around the time of the death of her husband, Diego. The painting is believed to depict two personalities. On the right of the picture is 'the Frida' the her husband loved and respected and depicts her holding a small portrait of Diego as a child whereas on the left of the painting is a Frida as a more european wearing a victorian dress of which her husband didn't like. Her heart is exposed on both Fridas as this is believed to show her pain. From the portrait she is holding on the right side there's a vein that runs around her and to the abandoned Frida and ends with the surgical pincers with just blood dripping from them onto her dress which indicates she trying to stop from bleeding to death but it keeps dripping.

We then proceed to put them up on the wall in a timeline form to show the progression, from the years 1000 to 2011.

I havent really learnt anything different from the lessons aside from what i already knew. I find looking back in art to be a worthwhile thing to do in my own time. Not only does it show you, particularly with some of the example present in the timeline above, the history of art but it also has a historical value to it as narration art is depicting a story. Most times than not, it is supposedly from a time and event that the event truly did happen.

Examples of story/narrative art.