Student: JOHAN SEBASTIAN RINCON Group: 14

GALLEGO

CPS Ticket-in Week 6

1. Read the passage and answer the questions below:

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

"I am not sick. I am broken.
But I am happy as long as I can paint."

only woman who has expressed in her

work an art of the feelings, functions,
and creative power of woman."

Frida lived her life in Mexico. Her

mother was a Mexican catholic; her
father a European atheist. She was
beautiful, spirited, and bold. She was
proud of her Mexican roots and often
Frida Kahlo was an incredibly
dressed in bright, unique Tehuana
amazing woman. Her life was filled
costume. Clothing had an important
with physical as well as emotional
role in her self-presentation. Her
pain. She endured more in her short
Mexicanism was also reflected in her
life than most people will ever have to
painting. She married Diego Rivera, a
face. But she endured. She put her
union which, according to her parents,
emotions into her painting, and as it
was like that between an elephant and
were, she wore her heart on her
a dove. Diego was fat, ugly, and much
canvas. Her work is a rare blend of
older than Frida, but she loved and
true emotion, heartbreak, love, and
admired him. However, he frequently
life, as well as death. Most of her
had affairs with other women,
paintings were self-portraits. She said,
including Frida's sister. This caused
"I paint self-portraits because I am the
Frida a lot of pain, but she retaliated:
person I know best. I paint my own
she had affairs of her own, with men
reality. The only thing I know is that I
and with women. The most notable of
paint because I need to, and I paint
her lovers was Leon Trotsky, the great
whatever passes through my head
Russian revolutionary who spent time
without any other considerations." Her
with Frida and Diego in Mexico while
paintings, like Tori Amos's music, are
in exile. Frida had a seductive effect
very open and honest. They reflect
on many people and charmed
her emotions, the events in her life,
everyone. People loved her beauty,
changes in her feelings - whether
personality, and talent. She was also
good or bad. She recorded her life in
known for her crass sense of humor,
paint. Her imagery and style were
often fond of telling dirty jokes and
very original, dramatic, and
cussing (which she got away with at
courageous. Her husband, the famous
high-society parties in America by
Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, said:
pretending she didn't know what the
"Frida is the only example in the
bad words meant in English). She
history of art of an artist who tore
gained success as an artist with
open her chest and heart to reveal the
exhibitions in New York and Paris,
biological truth of her feelings. The
becoming friends with the Surrealists
and especially with Pablo Picasso, who
was a big admirer of her work (and
who, incidentally, gave her the
earrings featured in her Self-Portrait
Dedicated to Dr. Eloesser).
Probably the most influential event
in Frida's life was the most tragic one
as well. When she was eighteen, she
was in a bus accident that marred her
for life. Her body was almost
destroyed. Both her spinal column and
pelvis were broken in three places.
She was skewered by a metal handrail
that entered her hip and exited
through her vagina. The doctors did
not expect her to live. It was during
the time after this accident, while bed-
ridden, that Frida began to paint.
Painting not only passed the time, but
became an essential outlet for her
emotionally and spiritually. Because of
the accident, Frida was never able to
have children. She had several
miscarriages, which caused her to be
horribly depressed. Frida purged her
emotions on her canvas. Her paintings
are often violent-looking, bloody, and
severe. But they simply represent the
truth of what was happening to her.
Since she could not be a mother, Frida
lavished her attention on her many
pets: dogs, cats, monkeys, and birds,
as well as on her plants. Her plants
and animals often are featured in her
self-portraits, taking the place of
children. Frida longed to be part of the
flow of the universe, the
connectedness of life. This is
evidenced in her painting Roots, which
shows her desire for fertility and to be
a part of the life cycle. Her best-
known painting, The Two Fridas, was
painted around the time she and
Diego got a divorce. One Frida is the
loved Frida, dark-skinned and wearing
Mexican dress, holding a picture of
Diego. She is holding hands with the
other Frida, who is paler and in
European dress and who has a broken,
exposed heart. Her torn emotions are
clearly displayed on the canvas. Yet a
year later she and Diego remarried.
However, her pain continued as her
health worsened in the 1940s. She
had numerous operations (about 35),
had to wear a steel corset to support
her spinal column, and was frequently
in the hospital. Months were spent in
bed, but she continued to paint. In the
painting Tree of Hope, again we see
two Fridas. One is in bright Tehuana
costume and guards over the injured
Frida, who is seen on a hospital
gurney with surgical cuts on her back.
Frida's health got even worse in 1950
and she was hospitalized for a year.
She had more operations and her leg
had to be amputated. Of this she
wrote in her diary: "Feet, what do I
need them for, if I have wings to fly?"
She still painted in bed when she
could, as painting had become a
tremendous source of spiritual support
for her. Yet the pain was becoming
unbearable and she wanted to die.
She was suffering more than ever in
her life. She was preoccupied with
death. Her paintings reflected her
depression, often including skeletons
and other grim images. She
eventually died on July 13, 1954.
Diego later described that day as the
most tragic day of his life. Frida lived
her life to the fullest, despite immense
pain, handicaps, and suffering. She
had a gift for communicating her
emotions to the world through
painting. Her paintings are beautiful,
often heartbreaking works, and are
uniquely her style. Yet she is an
amazing woman in her own right, for
what she has endured, how she
persevered, and how she was an
inspiration and example of strength.
 Taken from: http://www.amybrown.net/women/frida.html

Part I:
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph. There
is one extra heading that you do not need to use.

a. Fridas painting style.

1. Paragraph 1 __A___
b. Fridas life with Diego
2. Paragraph 2 __B___
Rivera.
3. Paragraph 3 __C___
c. Fridas artistic
sensitivity.
d. Fridas portrait.
Part II:
For questions 4 to 10, choose the best option, a-d.

4. The word endured in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to:

a. resisted b. challenged
c. confronted d. resolved.

5. The main idea of paragraph 1 is:

a. How Frida faced her love difficulties.
b. Fridas agressive personality.
c. The way Frida put her own drawbacks in her paintings.
d. The autobiographical character of Fridas portraits.

6. According to paragraph 1, we can elicit that her husband:

a. Was jealous of Frida as she was better artist than him.
b. Perfectly understood Fridas painting style.
c. Thought Frida used paintings to complain her suffering.
d. Thought Frida was the best ever Mexican woman artist.

7. In the sentence She was proud of her Mexican roots, the word roots means:
a. tendencies.
b. culture
c. origins.
d. offspring

8. In paragraph 2, the word retaliated means that Frida

a. Pretended she did not suffer.

b. Got revenge for his attitude.
c. Did not care about his attitude.
d. Expected he changed his behaviour.

9. From the second paragraph, we can elicit that Frida was

a. An ugly, sarcastic intelligent woman.

b. An appealing talented woman proud of her nations culture.
c. A sick atheist artist with a strongly seductive personality.
 d. A jealous woman who revenged from her husbands affairs.

10. The purpose of paragraph 3 is

a. Explaining the reasons of Fridas painting style.

b. Describing the symptoms of her sickness.
c. Revealing why she could not become a mother.
d. Justifying how she got crazy.