Cats in Art: Couturier Cat (Foujita)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  This is the second in a series of posts of the cat art of Leonard Foujita.

Image credit WikiArt, here.  Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Couturier Cat, 1927, medium and size unspecified, held in a private collection.

WikiArt calls this genre of painting "Magic Realism."  I'm not sure what that means--having never taken any art courses--but upon reflection, I guess it fits.  This particular kitty seems obsessed with the objects on the table, especially the thready thing in the center (a bobbin?) that kinda looks like a mouse.

As an aside, the term "couturier" comes from "couture," meaning dressmaker.  So Foujita, tongue-in-check, refers to the kitty as a dressmaker.

The cat may well stare at the "mouse" for some time, then, all of a sudden, the kitty will move on to something else as though the whole table episode had never happened...and without any acknowledgment that it had been faked out.

See, cats never get faked out, they only change their minds.