Compare and Contrast Essay
The “Self-Portrait with a bandaged ear” by Vincent Van Gogh and “The Two Fridas” by Mexican painter Kahlo Frida are depicting the artists’ deep hurt and emotional breakdown at losing their special person in life. However, the portrait “The Two Fridas” is representing the artist’s conflicting psychological mind more into details and straightforward than Vincent Van Gogh’s self-portrait “The Bandaged Ear.”
In “The Two Fridas,” she uses various actions and clear setting to help viewers the theme of painting easily. The background is filled with the agitated clouds on the stormy dark sky and it obviously reflects her inner pain. Frida who sits on the left side portrays rejected Frida by her husband Diego Rivera. On the right, it represents loved and respected Frida by him. The two Fridas hold hands each other as if loved Frida tries to join unloved Frida’s suffering. It also implies her only companion is herself since she was six years old. She was isolated from other people due to her health problems. In “The bandaged ear,” Van Gogh pierces the viewer’s feeling using the facial expression rather than actions. His pale and thin face like Jesus Christ in a late medieval painting and every brushstroke that he made on the canvas tells his pitiful presence at the time. In fact, it is not easy to catching the purpose of the Japanese painting on the wall behind Van Gogh. For late 18th century, European artists considered the traditional Japanese art as a utopian aestheticism. So, he uses the Japanese painting for representing his lost paradise.
Frida utilizes many symbolic and striking objects to illustrate her turmoil. The two hearts express her pain. The abandoned Frida’s heart is dying while the other Frida’s heart is whole. The unloved Frida is holding the surgical pincer to cut off a vein that travels through both Fridas’ hearts. Frida tries to stop the flow of blood from loved Frida on the right. Therefore, the blood is