Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait Painting
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter with a critical concentration on self-portraits. She was an active painter between 1925 and 1954. Her painting had a great theme that is associated with her struggle, especially when she started painting after a bus accident. Kahlo survived a troubled marriage life that she began doing her paintings. Her paintings were based on indigenous Mexican cultural themes that show how women are struggling to make ends meet due to some cultures that are associated with them. For instance, one of Kahlo’s paintings, self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird, is has a Mexican cultural theme that talks of struggles for women (Alicia 63). The picture shows her self-portrait that has a thorn necklace. The thorn necklace portrays indigenous Mexican culture, and it also shows some of the struggles that she was going through. She had had a bus accident that left her bedridden and troubled marriage, but the Mexican culture sees it as usual. There is also a hummingbird on the thorn necklace that shows that after all the struggles that she is going through, there is some hope, but still, she had to suffer from its weight.
The Kahlo did most of the paints portraying her self-portraits. The main reason for these was that she felt that she had suffered enough and tried to use her image to show the world about her suffering (Lis and Kevin 14). Besides, Kahlo used her self-portrait in her paintings because, at the time of starting doing the painting, she was bedridden that implies that most of her images were at her disposal. This makes it easier for her to use them without much struggle. Lastly, Kahlo used her portraits because she thought that the message that she was conveying through the paintings were based on her real life. In this regard, Kahlo was doing this after suffering an accident, and she had also experienced a troubled marriage.
Kahlo’s paintings can be defined as culturally affiliated paintings. They carried a strong theme of culture that shows how the indigenous Mexican treated their female counterparts. Most of her paintings were self-portrait showing a remorseful lady who had undergone a lot. The pictures show that one is not needed in this world. In this painting, there is a thorn necklace around her neck with a monkey sitting behind to add some weight leading to her bleeding (Alicia 52). The hummingbird is also hanging from her throat, making the pain unbearable. This is all that the Kahlo paintings try to show to the viewers that women are greatly suffering. The painting also shows a black panther that symbolizes death or bad luck. This indicates that her pictures are full of sorrow and bad things that happen to people daily, especially women.
Kahlo’s paintings reflected struggles in various ways. The pictures are full of distress and grief (Herrera, 97). They always show how people are struggling in life. The paintings show the traditional rebellion of women against male rule as well as colonial forces. The hummingbird can be used to symbolize the god of war, the Aztec and the monkey symbolized lousy luck. This implies that women are struggling from the male rule, while the Mexican people are struggling from colonial forces. In the painting, Kahlo can be seen bleeding after wearing the thorn necklace. The thorn necklace can also symbolize the Christian martyr struggling, and this may be used to represent the struggles that she is going through after a failed marriage.