Three Memorable Female Artists

In today’s society, women often experience difficulty in establishing their own identity and combining different roles that they have to take on during their lives. This fight would be more inspiring if female icons and female leaders in different parts of society were brimming with talent, authenticity and tranquility.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. The more accessible ‘role models’ in contemporary society are not always the most ideal role models.

In view of this, it might help to go back in time and look for inspiring women who, through their talent, character and determination, have truly left the world behind and left their mark on the collective imagination of The society. These women were determined to be themselves and made no effort to impress others. In fact, they left a much more significant impression on the world than the people who are always pretending.

In this article, we look at the lives of three different female artists who have all managed to leave something of their own to the world in a powerful and unique way.

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo is an absolute myth of the seventh art and a style icon that crossed several generations. However, when she first started, it was anything but easy for her.

She was born into a very poor family in Sweden, which made her understand from an early age that it is important to work hard and do what you can. When she was only fourteen years old, she became the face of several major department stores. After that, it didn’t take long for proposals to roll in from Hollywood. She seized these opportunities with both hands, but never allowed her private life to become part of commerce.

She was a discreet and professional model and always tried her best to be a good actress (she started her acting career in silent movies). She never accepted multimillion dollar proposals to interview her about her private life.

Greta Garbo lived by the mantra ‘be there for yourself and not for others’.

She retired at thirty-six and spent the rest of her life alone, simply because she wanted to. She invested her fortune in dynamic companies.

She was a great lover of nature, peace and her family. She passed away in New York at age 84 , leaving the world with an image of knowing how to be yourself and of unparalleled mystery.

Garbo is the perfect example of how a good upbringing and being loyal to yourself from an early age can also find a place in the world of drama.

Frida Kahlo

This famous Mexican artist is a true legend for her artwork, her passionate personality, her inner world and her unique perspective. Fortunately for herself and for us, she was able to express this complexity through her art.

Her life was marked by endless physical suffering. As a child she was struck by polio. This disease caused a lot of pain and made one leg thinner and weaker than her other leg.

But fate dealt another blow to her when, at the age of 18, she suffered a bus accident that affected the rest of her life. When the bus she was on collided with, a metal bar came loose and shot straight through her pelvis.

The consequences were truly devastating: her spine was broken in three places, her right leg in 11 places, and her right foot and left shoulder were both dislocated. In addition, the bus’s railing had also partially pierced the left side of her hip.

This accident caused Frida to be confined to her bed for a very long time and caused her a lot of pain. She had to undergo thirty operations and had to wear a plaster corset for a long time.

When she couldn’t do anything but lie in bed, she chose to express her pain through painting and writing. At times, she was feeling a little better and was able to get out of bed and experience passionate romances. The most famous romance was the romance with Diego Rivera, the man who eventually became her husband. The couple tried several times but were unable to have children, something that left them both very sad.

All the love and frustration that Frida felt, she expressed with enormous sensitivity in her art. Because of this, her art became known all over the world as a symbol of the great way to express pain in art.

Frida passed away at the age of 47 and with each passing year, both her private life and her artistic life become more and more relevant on a global level. Art is undoubtedly a way to immortalize yourself.

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was a soprano of Greek descent who became the most influential opera singer of the twentieth century.

Her parents were Greek immigrants living in New York. In this city they established themselves and managed to live a pleasant life. Her father was a pharmacist and was able to run a profitable business.

When her parents separated, Maria went back to Greece with her mother. Maria didn’t really have a good relationship with her mother. Later in life, Maria indicated that her mother played an important role in undermining some aspects of her self-confidence. Her mother often told her she was fat and ugly and constantly compared her to her sister.

Still, her career continued to advance. However, Maria no longer wanted to sing alone in performances that were assured of success. She wanted to sing in performances that conveyed more to the audience, that shared a deeper message.

She often talked about why she turned down roles that immediately gave the women who played them a lot of celebrity. She trusted her instincts and continued to work on her individuality. Always guided by her own standards and her own judgment, Callas eventually managed to build an enviable and successful career. She was even nicknamed ‘La Divina’.

Composer and director Kurt Pahlen described her art as “… her singing is like an open wound that makes his life force bleed passionately… as if she were the memory of the pain of the world…”.

When Callas met the Greek magnate Aristotle Onassis, she left her husband and caused a lot of uproar in the media. Before their paths crossed, her voice had already started to deteriorate, she had lost a lot, and when she and Onassis broke up, her vocal cord problems only got worse.

Onassis tried to get her back several times, but Maria had a very strong character. She was never able to forgive him for leaving her for Jacqueline Kennedy, though she always loved him.

When Onassis was dying, in the last few days of his life he asked if Maria would stay with him and finally she decided to stay with him until the end.

Maria was always a sensitive and insecure woman, but at the same time she possessed enormous determination and character.

She died of a heart attack at the age of 53, although some people believe she committed suicide through an overdose of tranquilizers. It may be that both the sensitive and insecure Maria and the legendary ‘La Divina’, after a life of light and shadow, but also of genuine and pure emotion, had chosen to rest forever in Paris.

She spent the last chapter of her life alone and even when she died she was alone: “The worst sorrow is the sorrow that has no witnesses.”