Frida Khalo, Self portrait as Tehuana, 1943

Introduction:

This painting is a self portrait that Frida Khalo started painting in 1940 and finished painting it in 1943. This painting goes by different names the main one being “Self portrait as Tehuana”, the painting also goes by two other names being “Diego in my thoughts” and “Thinking of Diego”. She painted it after having divorced Diego Rivera in 1940.

Description:

In this self portrait, we can see Frida wearing a traditional Tehuana costume, we can see her face surrounded by the clothing, she’s wearing red lipstick, she’s got a very thick dark mono brow, brown eyes, a bit of a moustach and she’s showing next to no emotion. On her forehead she has painted the face and collarbone of her ex husband Diego. Above her forehead we can see a beautiful bouquet of flowers sitting on top of her partly hidden hair, in this bouquet there are white flowers, purple flowers and green petals all perfectly organized. It looks like there are white petals surrounding her face. From the head down the dress looks like a table cloth hanging from her head, half of this table cloth looking dress is semi transparent with white flowers on it, then half way down this dress there is a purple stripe going across it. And from then on there are green and white vertical stripes.

The background is a mix of different green tones and in front of her, there are some strings going across the portrait which I can only assume to be spider webs.

Comment:

This portrait is an example of Frida’s immense talent is self-portraiture and it perfectly describes love and also the events that were happening in her life at that time.

This painting is essentially Frida’s way of trying to get Diego back while also expressing her feelings on their separation not through her facial expressions but through everything in the painting.

Despite the fact that he has cheated on her with other women, she still loved him and couldn’t stop thinking about him thus his face being painted on her forehead which represents him being forever engraved in her mind.

Frida has also presented herself wearing a traditional Tehuana costume, Diego loved this type of clothing. She most likely hoped that this painting would draw him back to her in gaining his love back. She also painted what I assumed to be a spider web around her face which I can guess to be a means of trapping or capturing him to have his love for herself and only herself.

Conclusion:

This painting clearly represents Frida’s deep emotions and unconditional love for Diego, which is ultimately the representation of love in it’s purest form. I can therefore conclude that this painting represents Love and Friendship. Personally I think that this is an amazing piece of art and it should go down in history with all the other most famous paintings because of how well Frida Symbolized love in this portrait.

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