Frida Kahlo, A Few Small Nips, 1935
Historical Background:
After her husband had an affair with her sister, Frida Kahlo created this painting to demonstrate her sorrow and sadness of the affair. She represented herself as a different woman, shown lying naked with many bleeding wounds. She chose to paint a different woman because her pain was too great to paint herself, but she said that she resonated with the woman in the painting because she felt "murdered," as the woman in the painting was.
Representation of Gender Role:
I think this represents male power because it shows a man literally causing many wounds to the woman, eventually leading to her death. The painting's title, "A Few Small Nips" refers to the man in the painting claiming he was innocent because it was "only a few nips." I think this shows his own thoughts of power over the woman because he decided the murder was justified, even when it wasn't.
RESEARCH
Haley, A Few Small Naps, 2015
I chose to discuss the issue of male power over women, so I decided to redo "A Few Small Nips" by Frida Kahlo. I wanted to change this because I did not like how it portrayed a man killing a woman and believing the murder was justified. I wanted to switch the message of the painting by portraying the woman as sleeping rather than dead.
I decided to edit the image by adding a nightgown to the female and removing all of the blood from the image. I made it so the female had not been beaten to death, but was just taking a nap. I decided to re-title the image "A Few Small Naps" rather than "A Few Small Nips" to show how she was simply being watched by her husband as she slept, rather than her being beaten to death.
INDIVIDUAL ART MAKING
This assignment helped me understand more about gender issues through different perspectives because at first glance, it seems that the painting was done by a man, since the message was the man feeling like he was justified in murdering his wife. After researching the piece and learning it was done by a woman who represented the female as herself when she was so hurt by her own husband's affair, I understood the message better than I did from just viewing it. It helped me see that not all artworks mean what they seem to at first glance.
REFLECT ON THE PROJECT
Haley
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