Portrait of Lucha Maria, A Girl from Tehuacan by Frida Kahlo (Interpretation and Analysis)

Portrait of Lucha Maria, A Girl from Tehuacan
Source: fridakahlo.org

Although Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is best known for her self-portraits, her own body was far from her only subject. In fact, some of Kahlo’s finest paintings comprise other topics, such as Portrait of Lucha Maria, A Girl from Tehuacan.

The painting depicts a young girl sitting on a rock in a desert. A black and white shawl is wrapped around her shoulders and she holds an airplane in her hands, perhaps a reference to World War II. In the background, the sky is divided into day and night, a motif that Kahlo returned to throughout her artistic career. Each half of the painting contains either the sun or the moon and a pre-Columbian pyramid, standing alone and stark in the barren landscape. As the painting is explicitly set in Tehuacan, these pyramids can be read as a reference to Teotihuacan, a pre-Columbian archeological site. Teotihuacan is famous for its two pyramids: known as the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun respectively.

Personally, this painting reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci’s world famous Mona Lisa. Although I’m sure Kahlo had no intentions of drawing comparisons with da Vinci’s work, the soft, half smile on the girl’s face and the split background that dominates the canvas irresistibly recalls the Mona Lisa. In both cases, Kahlo and da Vinci sought to explore the idea of duality, an idea that is continually interesting to artists throughout history. Like all human beings, the girl from Tehuacan (presumably Maria) contains internal contradictions, good and bad, darkness and light. The piece visualizes the human character as a split sky, explaining through art how one body can contain two different psychological worlds.

However, Kahlo’s Portrait of Lucha Maria, A Girl from Tehuacan is firmly rooted in Mexico. Kahlo was deeply interested in Mexico’s pre-Columbian past and herself had Indigenous ancestry on her mother’s side. However, Indigenous peoples in Kahlo’s time were often economically disadvantaged and were frequently ignored by the wider society. Kahlo was part of a new wave of artists who sought to represent and celebrate the ordinary, everyday people of Mexico. In Portrait of Lucha Maria, A Girl from Tehuacan, Kahlo proudly portrays the girl from Tehuacan with sensitivity, dignity, and complexity, while also capturing the grandeur of Mexico’s pre-Columbian monuments.

Disclaimer: I’m not an art historian or an expert on this topic. The above is my opinion, based on my interpretation of my foreknowledge of art and history. If I’ve done any additional research, I’ll note it above.