Frida Kahlo: Henry Ford Hospital Analysis - Essay Example

Frida Kahlo: Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed) The life of Frida Kahlo was immersed in pain and powerful experiences. In her youth she survived polio. When she was eighteen she suffered a serious injury in an accident when a streetcar ran into her school bus, her body impaled on a steel rod, and her foot, spine and pelvis crushed. She spent her life with pain coursing through her boy with every movement (Smith 261). When she was 25, she was taken to Henry Ford Hospital, Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed) 1932, Illus 1 suffering a miscarriage. The art that Kahlo created is restrained and tense, revealing painful images that express the drama that was her life. The painting that she created in Client’s Last Name 2 1932 titled Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed) (1932) is a reflection of the pain that she experienced through her experience in losing her child in a hospital room, feeling alone and isolated as nature played out its cruel joke on her. This represents the second miscarriage for Kahlo and it most probable that it also represents that she understands that she will never be able to carry a child after the terrible damage her body had suffered from the accident on her school bus. She found herself going through this experience in Detroit Michigan as her husband, Diego Rivera, painted his famous works Detroit Industry inside the Detroit Institute of Arts. In explaining her work, she describes the symbolism of the six representations that she is holding onto as they are attached to umbilical cords very specifically. According to Esaak, the fetus represents a figure she referred to as Dieguito which means ’little Diego’ and is her view of the child she had lost. The snail in the upper right represents the slow way in which the miscarriage was experienced. The machinery in the lower left hand corner would serve as a reminder of how cold and impersonal a medical experience can be for the patient. The orchid at the bottom is a flower that her husband had brought to her, while the two anatomical representations are symbolic of the female anatomy. As one looks at the space within the painting, it is first most obvious that there is a great deal of empty and open space in the piece. The figure of Kahlo is very small compared to the world in which she resides. She is small in the bed, a pool of blood beneath her and her belly still swollen. Still, she is small and powerless to do anything but hold on to the symbols of her experience as she also clutches her belly and feels the life that has slipped away from her. A very large and exaggerated single tear slides down Client’s Last Name 3 her cheek as she is laying back in repose, resigned to this fate. She is under a detailed sky, however the ground has been created with no vegetative details or without much in the way of texture. Because of the floating appearance of the symbols and the lack of textural substance in the ground, the bed appears to be floating instead of set down on the earth. The symbols are almost equally distanced across the top and then across the bottom, almost lined up, although if considered within a three dimensional space they would not appear this way. However, on the space of the canvas, the hover in approximate equality to one another as they express for Kahlo her sorrow and her loss. Despite how flat the ground appears, there is a vague attempt to express distance from the foreground back to the industrially harsh back drop of the smoke stacks and towers of industry. The row of industrial structures shows a great amount of detail, especially since the painting is only 12 13/16 X 15 13/16 done in oil on metal sheeting (Esaak). The bed is in proper perspective, but as it hangs there appearing above the ground there is an awkward appearance that contributes to the tension. As her body is slid to the side that seems to be angled towards the ground, her despair is evoked as her frail, damaged body moves to slide off of the bed on down to the ground below, disrupting the gathering she has done of her symbolic children as they are connected to her through the cords that she holds lightly in her hand. The painting hovers between the theories of abstraction and those of representation. The surrealistic quality of the work create a floating surrealistic quality to the emotion that is imparted. As any woman who has experienced this kind of loss, Client’s Last Name 4 carrying a child has a surreal quality to it, as does losing that child - a child that one loved without yet knowing. The intangible quality of the event is captured in the thematic way in which the real and the unreal are represented through realistic imagery. In this piece, there is no real sense of abstraction within the way in which each element is painted. In fact, no emotional or tangible quality of the experience is found from which she shies away. The vulnerability of her nudity, the pool of blood that she lays in, the medical representation of the reproductive system and the deathlike quality of the skeletal remains of her pelvis are all displayed without conflict, subterfuge, or reservation. Each symbolic element is clear and without being clever in the sense of hiding what lies beneath the surface. There remains a softness to the harsh reality. An element of sorrow is not lost in each aspect of the painting despite the cruelty that his represented. There is never a question of the femininity of the experience. There is no sense of violence or effrontery, just the story of the experience, without embellishment, and without ornamentation. The dialogue is neither brazen nor timid. It simply is the experience in its entirety. Within the framework of the story of her experience, she is revealed within her perception of the experience. This piece utilizes surrealism, realism, and symbolism within the composition. The different aspects of the piece are rendered with a realistic quality, as they reside within a surrealistic framework. The different aspects are strictly representational of her emotional context, without having a realistic purpose within the scene. The row of industrial architecture that represents the views she experienced in Detroit have a Client’s Last Name 5 detailed realism that does not strictly make a commentary, but reveals the literal view from her window. The piece would not be a favorite for its beauty. The vulnerability that is revealed is too painful to gaze upon for more than the genius of its emotional content. This isn’t a piece that is favored as something one would want to live with on a daily basis. It is too painful and too personal in its revelations. It strikes at the heart of the worst of the female experiences while maintaining the sorrow and vulnerability. The painting evokes the bleakness of the event without any of the anger one might expect. In this, it can be a bit frustrating. However, this is the truth of the experience - that there is nothing that one can do to stop this kind of loss. The anger that one might want to express simply can’t be indulged. The orchid that sits in the bottom center of the symbolic images, as stated before, was brought to her by her husband. In this, she represents his participation, but she shows how vicarious his participation would be as the flower is not really within her frame of sight. It lies almost underneath the bed as she has her face is most adjusted toward the fetus, her lost child. By removing the focus of the flower, she shows how removed the male experience can be to that through which the female must suffer. He is represented, but he is not active within the emotional content. The painting by Frida Kahlo that represents her second miscarriage entitled, Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed) (1932), is done in vivid and bold colors, despite its somber tone and theme. The coloration represents her style of painting while the Client’s Last Name 6 symbolism and surrealism represents the emotional content that Kahlo was purging from her memory. With the harsh reality of the event combined with the symbolism of her experience, Kahlo is able to portray her emotions through both blatant and subtle means. With the open spaces of the piece carefully unfilled, this leaves a specificity of well chosen content to speak for her. While the painting is very successful for its content, the uncomfortable vulnerability and the open despair make this painting low on a list of favorites. However, the quality of the content and the emotional and technical quality of the work, allows it to serve as a strong piece within its methodology. Client’s Last Name 7 Works Cited Esaak, Shelly. Henry Ford Hospital 1932. About Art History. 2007. 25 April 2009 Smith, Terry E. Making the Modern: Industry, Art, and Design in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Client’s Last Name 8 List of Illustrations Illus. 1 Frida Kahlo. Henry Ford Hospital (The Flying Bed) 1932. Available from http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/frida_kahlo/fk200708_03.htm Read More