In The Fig Tree

executions:

The Broken Column, 1944
Self-portrait painted by Frida Kahlo

This self-portrait is in sharp contrast to Frida’s other self-portraits in that she is all alone, no monkeys, no cats, no parrots, and no background of protective leaves and plants. Instead, Frida stands all alone crying on a vast bare plain beneath a stormy sky. Perhaps it’s her way of saying that she must deal with her physical and emotional pain on her own.

In 1944 when Frida painted this self-portrait, her health had deteriorated to the point where she had to wear a steel corset for five months. She described it as a “punishment”. The straps of the corset seem to be all that is holding the artist’s broken body together and upright. An Ionic column, broken in several pieces, symbolizes her damaged spine. The yawning cleft in her body is repeated in the furrows of the bleak fissured landscape. An even more powerful symbol of her pain are the nails piercing her face and body. The nails represent the physical pain she has endured since her accident. The larger nail piercing her heart represents the emotional pain caused by Diego.

Frida originally painted herself completely nude but then later decided that her total nudity distracted from the central theme and focus of the painting.

(via executions-deactivated20120313)