著者

福田 周

出版者

リトン

雑誌

死生学年報

巻号頁・発行日

vol.11, pp.145-172, 2015-03-31

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Frida Kahlo was a woman painter born in Mexico in the first half of the 20th century. Many of her works were self-portraits in which she expressed her own personal suffering in her work. This suffering included the aftermath of childhood poliomyelitis, distress due to disability after a traffic accident, and her agony over her love for her husband, Diego Rivera.In Kahlo’s life she was repeatedly deprived of attachment figures. Kahlo’s suffering can be traced to two major experiences:[1] She was deprived of the relationship with her mother due to the birth of her sister.[2] Her relationship with her body was seriously altered due to polio and the traffic accident.Regarding [1], she was first left without a relationship with her mother at the time of her sister’s birth. This was because Kahlo came to be brought up by her nanny, instead of her mother who was more focused on her sister. A close relationship with one’s mother gives a child a sense of basic trust. Regarding [2], she lost the freedom to take action; therefore, she developed an introverted character. As a child, Kahlo asked for salvation from imaginary companions while she was under medical treatment. In her adult life, she turned to the canvas for salvation.A theme appeared in her later self-portraits that had not been seen in her early work. This was a transformation of her relationship with her mother into one with the Great Mother or Mother Earth. In the end, Kahlo could not connect intimately with others in direct relations. She could, however, connect with Rivera thorough symbolic relations that represented a unity rooted in Mother Earth. It was here that Kahlo finally found peace.