A Quick Animation of Frida Kahlo’s Famous Self Portrait

In 1940, Fri­da Kahlo paint­ed a self por­trait for her lover, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Nick­o­las Muray. Accord­ing to the Fri­da Kahlo fan site, the paint­ing enti­tled “Autor­re­tra­to con col­lar de espinas” (or Self Por­trait with Neck­lace of Thorns) fea­tures Kahlo wear­ing Christ’s crown of thorns

as a neck­lace, pre­sent­ing her­self as a Chris­t­ian mar­tyr. The thorns dig­ging into her neck are sym­bol­ic of the pain she still feels over her divorce from Diego [Rivera]. Hang­ing from the thorny neck­lace is a dead hum­ming­bird whose out­stretched wings echo Frida’s joined eye­brows. In Mex­i­can folk tra­di­tion, dead hum­ming­birds were used as charms to bring luck in love. Over her left shoul­der the black cat, a sym­bol of bad luck and death, waits to pounce on the hum­ming­bird. Over her right shoul­der the sym­bol of the dev­il, her pet monkey…a gift from Diego. Around her hair, but­ter­flies rep­re­sent the Res­ur­rec­tion. Once again, Fri­da uses a wall of large trop­i­cal plant leaves as the back­ground.

In late 2013, Flo­rent Por­ta dropped the paint­ing into Pho­to­shop and brought every­thing in the back­ground to life. If this short clip intrigues, you should­n’t miss the recent viral video called “Beau­ty,” which ani­mates paint­ings by Car­avag­gio, Ver­meer, & oth­er great mas­ters.

via Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fri­da Kahlo Writes a Per­son­al Let­ter to Geor­gia O’Keeffe After O’Keeffe’s Ner­vous Break­down (1933)

Watch Mov­ing Short Films of Fri­da Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the “Blue House”

Fri­da Kahlo and Diego Rivera Vis­it Leon Trot­sky in Mex­i­co, 1938