freewheelin-on-line take 13 |
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freewheelin 211 March 2003 |
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I think that this
may be the first time that we have had a cat on the cover of
Freewheelin’. Unfortunately it is not a Siamese cat that sits on the
shoulder of the cover’s main feature: it is a plain old Tom from the
back streets of Mexico. The Mexican artist
Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) wouldn’t have had it any other way for
she championed the cause of the undercat. Frida had a tragic life that
was blighted by critical medical problems. She had polio as a child
and, as a teenager, she was involved in a serious road traffic
accident which resulted in her having to undergo numerous operations
to rebuild her broken body. Her sprit of adventure and colour was
never however broken and she became an important and influential
figure in the international art movement. This self
portrait, where Frida gives herself a somewhat masculine appearance,
was painted in 1940. The brambles around her neck perhaps signify the
physical restraints upon her because of the injuries that she suffered
and this situation is further emphasised by the sparrow being caught
up in the thorns. John Lennon, who
looks over Frida’s shoulder was born in 1940 and you can now visit
his childhood home in Liverpool, courtesy of Yoko and The National
Trust. Goodness only knows what JWL would have made of the state of
the world in the spring of 2003 but, unlike Frida, when John was a
teenager he was as free as a bird. The image of Dylan is taken from the sleeve of ‘Shot Of Love’ the album Dylan released in 1981, when he was 40. He has his eye on the sparrow that has fallen but I fear that the Mexican Tom will get to the bird first! |
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