Comparing Portrait Of The Artist And Cassatt's Self Portrait With A Monkey

Examining Art

There were many great artworks to choose from in this assignment, but only one pair that was really appealing to me. The artworks chosen for this assignment are Cassatt’s Portrait of the Artist and Kahlo’s Self Portrait with a Monkey. Both of these works of art portray a woman, but in two different settings. Cassatt’s Self-Portrait shows her leaning on an arm chair in what appears to be comfortable surroundings. Kahlo’s Self Portrait with a Monkey is set in a jungle. Cassatt’s painting is a more contemporary home setting and Kahlo’s set in nature. Both paintings are set in different cultural contexts. However, they resemble one another in the fact that they both feature one individual, who is the focal point of the art work.

She was one of Mexico’s greatest artists. Kahlo had a hard life. According to the textbook, she was in a street accident in 1925, at the age of eighteen (textbook). She also married an artist, Diego Rivera, who she was miserable with. Needless to say, she did not live a very happy life. She expressed herself through her artwork. She found comfort in creating self-portraits and they helped to fill a void in her life. Frida had intentions of becoming a doctor after she graduated high school, but life had other plans for her. Frida grew up in the Spanish, but was also part European. She was injured in the street car accident as a teenager and that is when she started painting. Most of her paintings are self-portraits. Looking at her many works of art, one can see the pain and sorrow in her eyes. According to Kahlo’s biography, she stated “I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint always whatever passes through my head, without any

Cassatt was from a well-off family, educated and trained in art and well-traveled at a very young age, while Kahlo suffered devastation and tragedy in her life and did not have training all of her life. Both women were still great artists. I learned that it doesn’t matter where you come from or how much money you have or even training, an artist creates from the mind and the heart. Both of these women painted real life situations and feelings. That is something that cannot be taught. Both of these women struggled in the art world because it was dominated by men but they did not give up. They made progress in their life, but their greatest successes would come after they both