
Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter, rose to fame due to her symbolic self-portraits that she painted in the early to middle parts of the 20th century. Although her self-portraits are more widely known to the common man, Kahlo’s “Henry Ford Hospital” became a symbolic picture of a traumatic abortion that she had to experience due to health complications. Though she is depicted in the painting, the elements surrounding her while she lays in a hospital bed, the city skyline sketched in the back, and the way she positions herself in the bed catches the audience’s attention to symbolize how horrific and morbid her own personal experience appeared.  

The main eye catcher in this particular visual text is the separate simple objects that surround Kahlo in her hospital bed. Each object connects to her hand by an umbilical cord and the piece connected directly above her conveys a picture of her son that she lost during the abortion. The fact that he lies in the dead center of the painting right above her symbolizes the reason for the painting. Though the procedure was traumatic, the part that remains the worst for her is the loss of her son. To the right of the son lies a picture of a snail. The snail helps represent the long and pain enduring process of not only the operation but the struggle of overcoming the depression due to her son’s death. The picture connected below her to the right depicts a piece of machinery. This sketch helps illustrate the emphasis of how technology and medicine goes into the process of abortion and how child birth has switched from being a natural event to one that is surrounded by machines and certain tools. 

Not only do these certain elements help symbolize the representation of her abortion, but the remaining few also help tie the portrait together. One of the pictures surrounding Kahlo as she lies in the hospital bed appears to be a representation of the inside of a woman’s body during pregnancy. This symbolic object represents the trouble she faced through not only the termination of the baby, but the pregnancy throughout. The fact that she added the detail of the inside of the body shows how the trouble of pregnancy alone. The object floating directly below her in the center illustrates a dying orchid. Orchids can represent fertility but also can represent death. The irony that the orchid not only represents her fertility, but then represents the death of her child help convey the cynical situation she found herself in. Lastly, the object floating the bottom right appears to be a pelvic bone. This pelvic bone representation helps symbolize the fracture she sustained through the procedure and the final blow from her procedure: that she can never have kids. All these elements together help represent the terribly sad abortion that Kahlo had to endure during the course of her life. 

Though the main focus of this portrait is Kahlo on the hospital bed with the objects floating around her, the city skyline that formats the background also catches the eyes of the audience. The city skyline represents the city of Detroit where the procedure took place. The fact that she added the city at all helps symbolize how the rest of Detroit moves on after her abortion. Though what she experienced was tragic and terrible, the rest of the world keeps spinning even though her world appears to stop. 

In the dead center of the portrait, Kahlo lies on her hospital bed naked, covered in blood, and appears distraught. The fact that she is shown naked helps represent her vulnerability during her procedure. She also painted a large tear drop falling down her face. The fact that she painted it so large helps show the enormous loss that she and her husband faced. Along with these certain details, her body is positioned in an odd manner. The upper half of her body is directed towards the audience, but the bottom half faces the other direction almost as if she is concealing herself from the watchful eyes of the audience. This weird and contorted position she portrays herself in helps convey her distraught nature. Her bottom half is hidden from viewers to show her embarrassment yet the upper half is shown as a cry for help. It helps show her conflicting emotions through such a horrible time in her adult life. The rest of the background of the painting remains as white and the color white represents purity and innocence. The fact that she left the rest of the canvas white symbolizes the innocence of the child that she lost during such a gruesome procedure. 

This painting not only leaves an impact for the artist, Frida Kahlo, because she painted her life and the tragedy she faced, but it leaves an impact for its viewers. She paints her suffering and misfortunes to convey how heavy a loss of this scale can effect a human being. The floating objects connected to the umbilical cords, the city skyline of Detroit in the background of the painting, and the position of her body in the middle of the portrait along with her facial expressions all help tie together not only the terrible and horrific experience she faced, but how she faced it. 
