An interesting painting dated 1667 but the date is incorrect because the painter lived 1616-1661. It is said to have been painted between and
It appears to me that the peasant lady is feeding her cat in the exact same way that she would feed a baby at that time or from an earlier time. The cat is wrapped up in swaddling clothes. I have placed the painting next to one of the Madonna and Child.
What do we make of the painting? I would very much doubt that this is a literal representation although it gives the impression that it should be.
We can see that it almost mirrors the Madonna and Child painting over 300 years earlier. I wonder if there is a religious context. The swaddling clothes are very strange. They make a statement that the cat is being treated as a child. Spoon feeding supports that. There appears to be milk on the spoon.
This is a larger version:
David Ryckaert III was a Flemish painter born and brought up in Antwerp. He painted a range of different subjects including religious pictures. This may give a clue as to why the peasant woman is feeding her cat like Jesus. Is it Jesus? It is very strange to see Jesus depicted as a black and white domestic cat.
See more: Cats in Paintings.
The cat has a slight hint of the child about his/her expression. However, I have come around to your way of thinking. People these days treat cats as children so nothing has changed and in those days swaddling clothes were normal so it does make sense. You see babies in swaddling in Russian hospitals all lined up after birth. Old fashioned.
Yes – well one of the most striking similarities with this little recording of reality is it’s similarity between a mother holding her child. And its even more striking if you consider how people considered animals back then. I’ve seen old photos of children holding cats like babies and giving them ‘medicine’ and so on – that is more what we are objecting to. I think this is different. And lets not forget that art was not conceptual back then. An artist was a person who recorded reality in paintings and sculpture. Anything conceptual or abstract back then inside the 4 walls of a picture frame would not have been acceptable. The abstract remained entirely in the category of crafts and patterns and so on.
Oh yes we doooooooooooooooooooo 🙂
Thank you – I’m very happy to be back and to be slowly getting back to normal. I have read all the articles but I just didn’t have time to comment like I normally do. I pretty much always read. I was reading PoC for a good year or more before I made any comments. 🙂
Ruth I don’t like it either. It just struck me that the young cat/kitten was wrapped in a blanket just as a bottle fed kitten would be. Holding a cat in a towel or blanket is a very practical way to manage everything and I just thought that given the year it probably was a painting of reality.
But yes the expression is disturbing – like so many expressions of peoples in paintings from those days. They are just creepy – almost clown like, exaggerated expression which has more to do with the style and context of art at the time. …no I don’t like the painting though. It’s interesting to analyze because its so unusual in subject matter.
We like Marc back don’t we, Ruth.