What the Water Gave Me (painting)
| Spanish: Lo que el agua me dio | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Frida Kahlo |
| Year | 1938 |
| Type | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 91 cm × 70.5 cm (36 in × 27.75 in) |
| Location | Collection of Daniel Filipacchi, Paris |
What the Water Gave Me (Lo que el agua me dio in Spanish) is an oil painting by Frida Kahlo that was completed in 1938. It is sometimes referred to as What I Saw in the Water.
The painting was included in Kahlo's first solo exhibit at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City in November 1938.[1][2] It is now part of the private collection of Surrealist art collector Daniel Filipacchi.[3]
Interpretations
André Breton saw Kahlo's art as Surrealist, saying of her work, "The promises of fantasy are filled with greater splendor by reality itself!"[4] For Breton, this work was exemplary of her Surrealism.[5]
According to the critic Bertram Wolfe, Kahlo's paintings appeared to bring together surrealism and a "deep-rooted Mexican tradition".[6]
The painting references traditional and ancient iconography, mythology and symbolism, eroticism and botany all mapped out onto a scene depicting the legs of the artist herself (as signified by her wounded right foot) submerged in bath water. References to Kahlo's earlier works and influences have been noted. These include themes from her painting My Parents, My Grandparents and I (1936), allusions to fifteenth-century painter Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Delights in her attention to flora and fauna, and a reference to her political position by documenting the clash of the old and the new in the dramatic detail of a skyscraper burning inside a volcano. Among the various elements of macabre that are visible, a skeleton and a nude bather choked by a rope stand out.[7][8]
Namesakes
- What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo is a collection of poems by Pascale Petit released in 2010 that were inspired by and reference Kahlo's work. With regards to the present painting, Petit makes Kahlo say that it reveals "my half-drowned thoughts bobbing around my legs". Other descriptions of various elements seen in the painting include "The Empire State Building spewing gangrene / over my shin" and a "giant / one-legged quetzal pierced by a tree".[9]
- "What the Water Gave Me" is a song by Florence and the Machine, and the first song released from their second studio album, Ceremonials (2011). It was written by Florence Welch with Francis White and produced by Paul Epworth. Welch decided to give the name to the song after viewing a Frida Kahlo work.
References
- ↑ Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy G., eds. (1995). "Frida Kahlo (1907–1954)". North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland. ISBN 0824060490.
- ↑ "Bomb Beribboned". Time 32 (20): 29. November 14, 1938.
- ↑ Kettenmann, Andrea (2003). Frida Kahlo, 1907-1954: Pain and Passion. Köln: Taschen. p. 95. ISBN 3822859834.
- ↑ Zamora, Martha (Aug 1, 1993). Frida Kahlo: Brush of Anguish. Chronicle Books. p. 56.
- ↑ Breton, André (May 1939). "Souvenir du Mexique". Minotaure (12-13): 16–17.
- ↑ Wolfe, Bertram D. (Nov 1, 1938). "Rise of another Rivera". Vogue.
- ↑ Breton, André (May 1939). "Des Tendances les plus récentes de la painture Surréaliste". Minotaure (12-13): 37.
- ↑ Mahon, Alyce (2011). "The Lost Secret: Frida Kahlo and the Surrealist Imaginary". Journal of Surrealism and the Americas 5 (1): 33–54. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
- ↑ Padel, Ruth. "What the Water Gave Me by Pascale Petit". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
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