Others viewed the small canvas not sexual. To them, the painting shows aspects of Kahlo’s duality, the Mexican Indian and the European. The comforter and the one being comforted. The painting emerges from her personal suffering that was caused by separation from Diego Rivera and worsening health. It emits an emotional and inner charged pulse with the existence of longing and existential loneliness. This painting conveys an unclear and unquestionable resilience as well.
Frida completed the painting in 1939 and it was a gift to Dolores del Rio, a Mexican movie star, who was her intimate girlfriend. This painting has a forest background with two naked ladies in a dreamlike setting - their faces express an intense contemplation and gentle compassion.
The light-skinned nude rest her head on the dark-skinned woman's lap and a monkey is watching them, which is a traditional symbol of animal sexuality, sin, and the devil. The same naked figures appeared in Frida's painting What the Water Gave Me, it was completed in 1938; a year earlier. The two female figures are viewed to represent Frida’s personality and heritage or ethnic identity – something that Frida Kahlo explored in her painting The Two Fridas.
Two Nudes in the Forest The Earth Itself painting passed to Dolores del Rio and then to Lewis Reilly after the death of the Mexican painter, Frida, in 1954. In 1989, a gallerist named Mary Anne Martin bought it and later sold this work to the then president of Microsoft, Jon Shirley, who consigned it. According to Frida Kahlo, she painted her own reality. She was inspired by indigenous Mexican culture that is apparent in her usage of dramatic symbolism and bright colours. Frida included a symbolic monkey, which symbolized lust in Mexican Mythology. Even so, she portrayed monkeys as protective and tender symbols. She worked essentially in the medium of oil on Masonite or canvas.