Cats In Art

The cat was sacred to the Egyptian goddess Bast. Cemeteries containing the bodies of mummified sacred cats have been discovered with bronze statues of cats, like this one which is dated to around 600 B.C.

Cats are known to have been a part of Egyptian households by 1600 B.C. although they were not deified until much later. This touching portrayal of a mama cat with her kitten provides a glimpse of domestic life in the good old days when cats were everyday objects of worship. Mosaic tile renderings of gods, goddesses, flora and fauna covered the walls and floors of the finest homes of the Roman Empire. This mosaic portrait of a hunting cat and his catch was discovered during excavations of the houses in Pompeii.

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MIDDLE AGES



Most Western artists of the Middle Ages produced religious paintings. Each object in a painting symbolized a particular idea or concept in Christian doctrine. In the iconography of Christian art, the cat symbolized both laziness and lust. The Middle Ages were dark centuries for the cat in the Christian world, where it was widely believed that the devil took the form of a black cat. Persecution, torture and death became the likely fate of humans who showed attention or affection to any cat.

In the Islamic world, the cat was respected and protected because cats were loved by the prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam. There is a story that Mohammed's cat Muezza once fell asleep on the sleeve of his master's robe --instead of disturbing his beloved cat when he had to leave, Mohammed cut off the sleeve of his robe.

This bronze incense burner represents a cat with its mouth half open and ears pricked. The back, neck and chest are all perforated to allow incense to escape. On the cat's chest is an inscription in the Kufic script which says: "Valor, power, and glory."

In 1348, the Black Death or bubonic plague swept across Europe in successive epidemics with an overwhelming loss of life. In England, more than half the people died; in some parts of France, only one-tenth of the population survived. Cats believe that, by bringing the rodent population under control, we heroically saved the humans from complete extinction. Europeans of the Middle Ages, however, did not appear to make the connection or they would have been much nicer to us. There is an early European woodcut shows a Venetian doctor visiting a plague patient. The household cat appears to sit guard in the room, keeping those nasty rodents away.

Cats were honored and protected in Asia because the humans there recognized the value of our services in protecting food crops and the silk worm industry from destruction by rodents. This cat appeared in a 1494 album of studies by the Chinese painter Shên Chou, one of the first great masters of the Ming Dynasty. Although created in the same year as the woodcut above, the painting seems modern in the way it allows us a glimpse of the cat's personality.

Portraying a lively domestic scene, Dutch artist Jan Steen painted The Cat's Dancing Lesson. It's difficult to tell whether the cat is as amused by the experience as the humans around him. Although a few cats will do anything for attention, most of us would find this very undignified behavior.


[17th century, Jan Steen, The Cat's Dancing Lesson (detail), oil on panel]

Detailed, almost photo-realistic, still life paintings became highly popular during the 17th & 18th centuries. This still life painting is livened up a bit by the presence of a cat who is about to grab some game for herself.

The work of the great Spanish painter, Francisco Goya, was full of contempt for the Spanish aristocracy and horror of the corrupt nature of mankind. In his painting, Don Manuel Osorio de Zuñiga, Goya appears to portray the purity and innocence of a child. However, the child holds a bird captive at the end of a string, teasing the cats who wait for their chance to pounce and devour it.

Goya's observation of the world led him to believe that the eighteenth century philosophers' dream of Reason only produced monsters. His etching, entitled The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, shows a student asleep over his books while the air around him is filled with screech owls and bats.
This etching has been given various interpretations, but it is generally thought that the work represents the "triumph of nightmare." Does the cat represent Goya's belief that Reason, with its inherent power to end the nightmare, sits back and does nothing?


[1797-98, Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, etching with aquatint]

Part of the series One Hundred Views of Edo, this color woodblock print is by the Japanese artist Hiroshige Utagawa, a great master of woodblock art. Bobtail cats were thought by the Japanese to bring good luck.

[1858, Hiroshige, Cat In A Window, woodblock]

Manet's etching, Olympia, is a free translation of his famous painting which shocked the academic art world in 1865. That etching was the frontispiece in a pamphlet published in 1868 by the famed writer and art critic Émile Zola to defend Manet's art. In the original painting, Olympia's little black cat almost recedes into the background. In the etching, however, the cat is easily noticed.

Renoir was apparently fond of cats and included many in his paintings. Julie Manet was the daughter of Berthe Morisot and the niece of Édouard Manet, both of whom were members, like Renoir, of the Impressionist school.

[1867, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Julie Manet With Cat, painting]

Lithography emerged in the late 19th century as a favorite graphic arts medium for advertising. There is a poster advertises pure, sterilized milk and features the artwork of Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, well-known for his illustrations of cats.

Swiss artist Félix Vallotton pays homage to the quest for the exotic that was prevalent in the late 19th century. The cat in this woodcut is an important compositional element, completing the strong white diagonal that begins in the bent arm of his human and adding energy to the languor of the subject matter.

There is a painting by Paul Gauguin is sometimes referred to as A Tahitian Interior, but the artist named it Eiaha Ohipa which means "doing nothing" in the language of Tahiti. And is there anyone who can do nothing better than a cat?

[1903, Pierre Bonnard, Cat, brush and ink]

Bonnard is better known for his paintings, some of which resemble the works of the Impressionists although there are many dissimilarities. He was one of the few painters at the turn of the century to include cats in his work. In this detail from The Terrasse Family, the family cat enjoys a social afternoon with his humans.

From his "Circus Period," Picasso's etching of the Harlequin's family at their bath includes the family's cat in the intimate boudoir scene. The tenderness displayed by the mother to her child is echoed by the cat's show of affection to his master.