Feline the Love - Esther

Blue Monday approaches, I thought. The third Monday of January. What on earth could inspire me to think about art ahead of the alleged “most depressing day of the year?” If only there was some obvious idea in the title to stir me to write about art…

My little joke. Instead of focusing on blue I went for something that might enliven us all (me), might evoke warmth & comfort & cheer us all up (again me). A few blog entries ago, I threatened to write about cats in art, so today seems as good a time as any. I’m not going to go for photography, the admittedly hilarious medieval depictions of cats (could be yet another entry) or (swoons in horror) comedy or clothed cats, but the plentiful & respectful examples of cats in art that exist. & not the ones that appear as bit-players in paintings: the main feature, the full-on celebration of the beauty & perfection that occurs in all cats, the works that honour all their complexity, simplicity & their perma-fabulous silhouettes. 

Rather than pick from the many individual cat artworks, today I’d like to highlight some artists that have a clear understanding of all the aspects of a cat & portray their characteristics most effectively, the ones that do it with affection. These are the artists that attract me & these are the ones I respect for their ability to encapsulate the disposition & temperament of our feline friends as well as their obvious capacity for love of a fellow creature.

For me the best place to start is Gwen John (1876-1939). With the mere sweep of a brush, she could produce the perfect gestural sketch of a cat, believable & painterly in equal measures or with the merest detail to convince the eye as in Black Cat on Blue & Pink (1910s-1920s). 

Thankfully we have many of Gwen’s cats left to us in a wide range of poses. Of course, the easiest way to capture a cat image is when it is asleep, as in the curled-up Cat (1904-8). A cat conjures the joy & ease of sleep better than any animal & Gwen captures this expertly in his blissed-out features. She also suggests the perfect striping on his back with a few thinly-applied strokes of watercolour.

Certainly my favourite though is the Cat (1904-8) that sits up, full of character, clear-eyed & alert. It is an absolutely beautiful image – you can picture Gwen talking with this cat, asking him what he sees over in the distance. He perhaps replies with a meow before shutting his eyes again & falling back to sleep.

As I say, the easiest way to get a cat to sit for you is to draw it as it sleeps. When they move, they may well be doing so languidly & casually but their bodies ripple, sag & tighten in a series of hard-to-capture movements. From experience, they do often get a vibe that you’re watching them even when asleep & as any cat fan knows, they dislike that. This makes the Cornelis Visscher’s (1629-1658) Cat Sleeping (1657) engraving all the more incredible. 

There appears to be little known about the artist’s short but nevertheless prolific life & practise except that he was known to be particularly brilliant in his use of charcoal. How charcoal handles generally might explain his ability to record & recall detail towards creating etchings, quickly & effectively catching the light & shade & speedily being able to smudge & apply detail on top. His (c.1650) Kleine Kat shows too where the whiskers could easily & quickly be erased to show their position & tension.

Devoting an entire entry to Théophile Steinlen (1859-1923) & his cat works seemed excessive, although it would not have been unreasonable. He even published a book of cat illustrations. He of the famous La tournée du Chat Noir poster (see 100 Greats, Part 5) included the curiosity & occasional neediness of the cat in other commercial pieces, such as Compagnie Française des Chocolats et des Thès (1895) which included his own wife & daughter & Des Chats (1898) where they are shown in various states of motivation. As cats do, some rub against the child, others yowl & yet another stands back patient but keen.

As we see, he did not shy away from their tricky actions & subtle transferences of weight. Le Chat could depict a newly-landed cat or one settling to eat at a dish.

A Sitting Cat implores:

& another from 1914 is vigilant & taut:

He even made them in three dimensions (1913):

As staggering in their creation as her works are beautiful, Vanessa Lubach’s linocuts frequently feature felines in all their glorious states. Her elaborate process belies the phenomenal detail included in each piece. Whether it’s Kittens, Cat on a Windowsill, Helen & the Geraniums (detail) or Hector she describes many of the moods & activities of cats in her prints.

You can see several detailed works in progress & process photos on her Facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/vanessalubach 

Finally, the man that is probably better known for his expressive trees than his lifelike cats, Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) who drew & painted a great many for story illustrations. The genius that he is, he captures the cat doing ordinary prowling as in The Cat & Mouse Partnership (1909) or Tomasso, the Cat in the Garden (1907). The cats are realistic & well-proportioned but still carry the anthropomorphic air of so many Rackham animals; he never does this in a negative patronising sense, but instead with the keen illustrator’s eye, the one who is enhancing a story & developing a character. 

He’s not afraid therefore to depict the cat in all her apparent viciousness, but which is really simply part of her nature – the predator, the stalker – as in By Day She Made Herself Into a Cat (1920) or The Cat & the Cock (1912) from Aesop’s Fables.

His 1925 illustration for The Bremen Town Musicians (from Grimm’s Fairy Tales) epitomises feline misery in cold & wet conditions as the little cat hunches against the wind.

Most beautiful & natural of all is perhaps his study, Watercolour of a Cat (1911) lying alert but comfortable. Here we see the cat in all its warmth & softness ready once again to settle down…

As an extra pre-Blue Monday treat & just for fun, here is Arthur with a couple of lovely shoulder-surfing cats, giving him the runaround no doubt. & no doubt, he loves it.

It seems it’s very easy to sentimentalise the cat in painting or sculpture & this rarely makes good art even in the most competent hands. Much better to observe, understand & record the creatures authentically. After all, the cat knows best.