Cats in Art: Squatted Woman Offering of Milk to a Cat (Vallotton)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

This month I am currently featuring 2 more installments of the art of Felix Vallotton--this is 2 of 2. In Dec 2010 I had previously done a Vallotton image entitled Laziness, featuring (what else?) a naked woman and a cat, which may be found here.

 

Image credit The Athenaeum, Squatted Woman Offering of Milk to a Cat, Felix Vallotton, 1918, oil on canvas, 100 cm x 80 cm.

 

Another nude, another cat.  In fact, I have examined all the Vallotton images I could find on the net, and while there were plenty of nudes, there were only a couple of cats...always accompanied by naked women. 

 

Seems Vallotton was quite interested in that combination.

 

In the image above from the Zuffi book, there seems to be a wordless bond between the woman and the placid black cat.  Both the nude and the cat are timeless themes in art, although the woman above seems awkwardly perched and imbalanced.  The model must have had a devil of a time holding that pose.

 

Just another example of the things we do for our cats!