The Wounded Table

Aztecs Home Teachers’ Page Kids Home Ask the Experts Ask Us Tec a Good Look ... You Contribute Can you help? Moctezuma GIF Offerings Aztec Gods Aztec Underworld Aztec Health Aztec Music Aztec Writing Aztec Calendar Flora and Fauna Aztec Artefacts Places to Visit Resources Resource Reviews Aztefacts Aztec Life Spanish Invasion Aztec Stories Aztec Inspiration Aztec Language School Displays Aztec Links Getting Involved Aztec Quizzes Feedback Credits This introduction to ‘The Wounded Table’ was written specially for us by Dr. Mariella C. Remund, Founder/Director of the Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund, Baden-Baden, Germany, where a licensed replica of the original is on exhibition. Probably the most mysterious of Frida’s works - she painted it over a short period of time and under pressure during the first few weeks of her divorce from Diego Rivera - the painting was exhibited for the first time in January 1940; it then disappeared in 1955 on its way to an exhibition in Moscow. Only three photos, taken between 1940 and 1944, are known to document this painting. In The Wounded Table Frida Kahlo presents to the viewer the idea that Mexican Frida also finds herself in the process of disintegration. All the figures and objects in the painting are a symbol of mexicanidad and a symbol of different aspects of Frida Kahlo’s personality. Frida’s right arm is painted in the form and colour of the arm of a terracotta Nayarit figure which sits next to her. Frida’s hand holds a cup to the mouth of the Nayarit. The template for this Nayarit couple can be found in the pre-Columbian collection of Diego Rivera (see picture 2). All in all the Nayarit are grave figures and refer to Mexico’s heritage. The Nayarit figure is Frida Kahlo. Frida feeds this figure with her own blood: the blood that Frida has taken from the open wound at her neck. This wound is now dry - Frida has sacrificed herself to mexicanidad. The Skeleton is represented as a feminine skeleton with its light rose coloured vagina. It has a round hole in the middle of the stomach, exactly in the place where Frida Kahlo was badly hurt in the bus accident. It has thick feet, and the right foot is amputated in the middle, exactly like Frida’s right foot whose toes were amputated in 1934. The round head, the big eyes, the open laugh, the ribs structure of the skeleton are not typical of any skeleton Frida Kahlo ever painted. All these features belong to a figure in Aztec mythology: Mictlancíhuatl or the Goddess of the Dead who died herself in child birth. In the Aztec pantheon, she was the wife of Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the underworld, Mictlan. Mictlancíhuatl died giving birth to her child. She looked after the bones of the dead and wore a skirt of rattlesnakes. The Skeleton, the feminine representation of the Aztec Queen of the Dead, is also Frida Kahlo. The Skeleton (Death) has a close relationship with Frida Kahlo. Death sleeps over her bed (see her painting The Dream), death sits at her table, plays with her hair. In the aftermath of her almost fatal bus accident in 1925, Frida Kahlo wrote to Alejandro: ‘Here Death dances around my hospital bed’. The tall Judas Figure sits on the right side of Frida. Frida Kahlo painted her face and her famous unibrow on the small head of the Judas. The Judas has the usual fireworks attached to its body, one of the fireworks is also stuck onto Frida’s forehead of the Judas which is unusual for a Judas figure. The Judas Figure is Frida Kahlo – it has her face and her famous unibrow. Judas is the symbol of mortality. The Judas embraces the shoulders of Frida, giving the impression that his left arm could be hers. In this way she represented herself totally without arms (i.e. unable to handle the situation), just as in her painting Memories. The Table looks like as if it would bleed from the interior through the knots, the blood spills on its surface and from the table drops on the floor. The table has four legs, depicted as human left and right legs