Broken Column

Mediums: oil, canvas.
Dimensions: 43 x 33 сm.
Location: The Dolores Olmedo Collection, Mexico City (Mexico).

The picture combines the demonstration of emotional and physical pain that the artist suffered from. Her biographer Herrera wrote, “A gap on the body resembles a crack in the wall after an earthquake… Without a steel corset it will fall apart in a literal sense”, as actually happened in her life. A broken ionic column holds the artist, but sharp metal nails of pain pervade the still-living body. More generally, the architectural component is associated simultaneously with the strength and fragility of the female body. Kahlo showed her wounds as the Christian martyr Saint-Sebastian and used physical nudity and sexuality to convey the meaning and depth of her spiritual and physical suffering.