Did Vincent van Gogh have a cat?
Today is a good day to ask whether Vincent van Gogh had a cat because on this day in 1890, Vincent van Gogh shot himself once in the chest. He was aged 37 and it took him two days to … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Cats in Art
Girl with a Kitten by Lucian Freud
From time to time I like to write about cats in paintings. This is one by Lucian Freud which he completed between 1948 and 1949. The painting shows Kitty Garman (1926-2011) holding a cat. Freud was married to Kitty between … Continue reading →
Cat Sculpture by Grayson Perry
This is a photograph of Grayson Perry’s sculpture of a cat which he has uploaded to Twitter hours ago. I have no idea what it signifies if anything. It is grand and important. There appears to be a very large … Continue reading →
The sex symbolism behind the cat in Hockney’s Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy
The all-white cat gazing out of the balcony doors to the exterior, in David Hockney’s painting Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, is sitting on Mr Clark’s lap in a peculiar and uncomfortable way. The cat is meant to be … Continue reading →
Édouard Manet loved cats and many of his letters have small sketches of cats
This is a little bit of cat trivia. It is not going to change the world but it is quite interesting nonetheless to people who like cats. Édouard Manet, a French modernist painter of the 19th century, was ‘a pivotal … Continue reading →
These fluffy cats are some of the most intricate drawings you’ll ever see
This is the art of Kamwei Fong. He is a smart guy and he lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Below I have embedded two images and two videos from his Instagram account.
Continue reading →22,000 toothpicks create a cat picture
A high school in the Chiba Prefecture of Japan created a large picture (sculpture?) of the head of a white cat using 22,000 toothpicks. It was a large undertaking which took 5 months of work and a scientific and well … Continue reading →
Domestic cat teased by Christ’s suffering as symbolised by a goldfinch
It’d be interesting if someone could try and untangle the interpretation of this 16th century religious painting by Barocci containing a domestic cat. It is called ‘The Madonna of the Cat’ (La Madonna del Gatto). Please click on the image … Continue reading →
Why there are hundreds of cats off the ground in a Denver alley?
This is another arresting cat picture. It certainly caught my eye. It looks cool and plausible – just. However it’s art and they are not real. Artist Kelly Monico installed the cats between 14th and 15th streets west of Larimer … Continue reading →
Mediaeval cat paintings: ugly anthropomorphized depictions
I’ve seen this before. It appears that painters in mediaeval times had a compulsion to depict both domestic and wild cats with human faces. Not only that, the faces are ugly. Almost every painting looks like a cat cartoon and … Continue reading →