So I was rather taken aback by the cheerful jazz voice that came lilting out of my headphones, underscored by piano and percussion. But the singer (Esperanza Spaulding) stops short and begins a spoken word voice over. She asks Frida if that is her she sees in the shadow of every Mexican woman on the street and proceeds to change the mood of the piece into something a little more somber.

When the music and the vocalizations start again, it is no longer as lilting and airy and has taken on more of a sensual air. But it still does not mesh with any of her self-portraits that I could recall. So I was somewhat taken aback when I looked at the image he had selected and saw a young woman staring back at me who had many of the qualities that Arturo’s music claimed she did. Of all of Frida’s Self Portraits this is probably one of the least well known because it doesn’t show her as suffering.

Very rarely are images of Frida shown these days that don’t serve to remind everyone of her suffering, ignoring the fact that she was a sensual and passionate woman. She had a great many lovers, male and female, throughout her life and when able, she took great pleasure in living live to the fullest.

This is the woman who Arturo Stable saw in this picture and composed his music for and I understand his choice now. I’m still not sure I completely agree with the direction the music takes, it’s a little too frothy considering the somber colours used in the painting, and the intensity of Frida’s stare, but his depiction of her as vibrant and alive is note perfect.

Monet’s “Impression/Sunrise” is probably typical of the impressionist school of painting from the late nineteenth early twentieth century but isn’t a work that I know very well. Truth be told I’ve always found most work by the Impressionists, with a few exceptions, to be insipid; nice to look at and all that, but not much body.

Monet said that when you go out to paint, look at a composition in terms of blocks of colour, not in terms of subject matter. So a painting would be a representation of the colours and their contrasting shapes and hues instead of being literal. According to Arturo’s notes he has attempted something similar musically with the use of two contrasting styles.