The painterly crucifixion's merit and relevance rests largely in its demonstration of technical virtuosity and originality in portrayal of subject matter that has been taken on close to countless times before by many brilliant painters as well as its ability to initiate or maintain the inspiration of spiritual passion or exaltation of common, altruistic virtues, namely selflessness, forgiveness, long-suffering (patience), compassion, innocence, grief, and injustice. Few painters better understood the paradox of heroism and victimization exemplified in Jesus Christ in the long tradition of crucifixion paintings than Frida Kahlo, perhaps, because few people strike the deadly symmetry between lion and lamb in every sweeping gesture of his or her personality as she did. No single artist's paintings better and more expansively than Kahlo's self-portraits illustrate the complex effect suffering of the body has on the mind or narrate the drama of the spirit's struggle to rise above it, including the vast body of work created by Van Gogh.