Cats in Art: Still Life With Cat (Lazzari)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art.  Having moved on from Stefano Zuffi's marvelous work, The Cat in Art, I am now using some ideas from Caroline Bugler's equally impressive book, The Cat/3500 Years of the Cat in Art.  You really should check out and/or own both of these wonderful works, easily available on Amazon or eBay (and I have no financial interest).

This is my first of several posts on the cat art of Sebastiano Lazzari.

Image credit Wikigallery, Still Life With Cat, Sebastiano Lazzari, mid-1700s, oil on canvas, dimensions unspecified, held by Gallerie Dell Accademia, Venice, Italy.

And the kitty close-up:

Bugler's analysis:

No one would be fooled into thinking they were in the presence of a real cat, as the creature looks as solidly wooden as the table on which it stands, despite the fact that it is darting forwards to snatch a splice of very Italian-looking salami.

Ms. Bugler beat me to it--this cat is stylized and not at all alive.  While the rest of the image is pretty faithfully rendered as to realism, the cat is not.  Perhaps this is a stereotype, but the painter may well have been an engineer at heart with more attention paid to the scientific details of the lifeless objects in the image and no empathy for the kitty.

Of course, this does seem to be a very bad kitty.

[Gary note: With my Cats in Arts posts, I encourage you to scope out the art appreciation site Artsy (I have no financial interest in the site, I just like it), where you can explore many aspects of the world of art.  You'll certainly be entertained and enlightened!]