Frida Kahlo Self Portrait Essay
Chapter Five: Interpretive Evaluation Essay
For my essay I will be discussing my evaluation of Frida Kahlo’s painting named “Self-portrait along the boarder line between Mexico and the United States”. Frida Kahlo created this painting while living in Detroit at the time, in the year 1932. My overall impression of her creation is she’s lonely, the loyalty to her home town (Coyacan, Mexico), how she views our country, and how the two sides of her portrait contrast. She displays she’s lonesome by standing solid, by herself on a stone engraved with her name. She portrays loyalty to Mexico by painting herself in a traditional Mexican dress, holding the Mexican flag in her left hand and by painting the left side of the picture with brighter colors making her love for Mexico pop. She painted herself with such a determined demeanor, she painted the right side of the portrait with more grays and neutral colors, giving the U.S. a more depressing look of appeal to it. Let’s look at the left side of the portrait. The exotic plants, with the white roots, the partially torn pre- Columbian temple, the fertility idols, her dress, the flag. All of these items in the painting, represent Mexico. Now let’s look at the right side of the portrait. The cigarette in her right hand representing big tobacco companies, the factories creating pollution to fill the air, skyscrapers, the FORD written small in the background on the buildings, the U.S. flag,
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For example the sun and the moon. Creating a red bolt of lightning may represent a painful event she may have encountered in Mexico. For instance I read she had polio at a young age and three miscarriages later in her life. In the U.S. she was exposed to newly introduce modern technology as she displays in the bottom of her portrait. With her painting the right side with such a neutral tone, one may interpret she was trying to express her sadness of being far from her home in
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