Henry Ford Women

Words: 1687
Pages: 7

Julia Lopez
04187997
LA127 OL2: Topic in World Art
Professor Candace Huey
21 May 2016

Realism in the Representation of Sexuality and the Female Form: An Analysis of Frida Kahlo’s Henry Ford Hospital and Edouard Manet’s Olympia

Though created in very different periods and across the globe from one another, Henry Ford Hospital, painted by Frida Kahlo in 1932, and Olympia, painted by Edouard Manet in 1865, present viewers with vulnerably confronting representations of the nude female figure in relation to her sexuality. The inherent difference between these reposed representations is, however, the facet of the sexual figure that is speaking to her onlookers: From Frida, we are given an image of the woman as a reproductive mother in the wake
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Created in Frida’s quintessential style, which was heavily inspired by Retablos, Henry Ford Hospital is painted in a simplified, somewhat flat style with colorful oils upon a metal panel. Honoring (and inspired by) Aztec art and symbolism, Frida created a surreal world in which the Western-favored style of oil painting was not relevant to her story, influences, or sense of reality. Olympia is painted in a similar fashion, with thick oil paint applied flatly with harsh lighting and simplified shadows and forms, though Manet’s reasoning for this rendering is entirely unrelated to that of Frida; In an effort to refute the academic style, he purposefully reduced atmospheric perspective and three-dimensionality — Choices that had contemporary French salon goers up in arms. Manet felt as though the traditional academic style of painting that said salon goers were accustomed to, which was highly idealized, expertly rendered, and themed either biblically, historically, or mythically ("Edouard Manet's Olympia"), was not a depiction or reflection of the reality of life in Paris in …show more content…
It is likely that a very small number of viewers of this painting have experienced the traumas Frida endured throughout her life, but the intimacy of this self portrait and the context of her feelings provided by the objects give a communicative quality to something there are perhaps no words for. Laying still in her hospital bed, Frida is shown with tears in her eyes and blood surrounding her, gripping ribbon-like representations of umbilical chords that connect to an intact anatomical reference of the female reproductive system, a perfectly serene fetus, a snail symbolizing the pace of the miscarriage, Frida’s own pelvic structure, a bloomed flower, and an indistinct machine that represents the mechanical cause of her condition. The culmination of these symbols creates a story of her life, her hopes for her son, and the contrast between what could have been and what truly was, while her own figure tells of her devastation. This perspective of Frida’s experiences as a woman, both sexually and emotionally, offers a unique insight into the reality of her circumstance and the more painful truths of reproductive womanhood — One viewers were not used to in terms of portraiture, nude representations of the female body, and early modern art. The female gaze in terms of sexually based