Cats in Art: A Lion and Three Wolves (de Vos)

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.  

This is the third of three posts featuring some art from Paul de Vos.

Image credit Museo del Prado, Un Leon y Tres Lobos (A Lion and Three Wolves), Paul de Vos, ca 1640s, oil on canvas, 63" x 78", held by Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

The poor lion seems to be getting his clock cleaned by the wolves, although one doesn't know the next stage of the fight.  Perhaps the lion would slink off, leaving the kill to the canids.

And the lion seems a bit small, or the wolves a tad too large, thus enhancing the combat value.  Ordinarily I'd think a lion would have little trouble handling a trio of wolves...which brings upo the question as to whether wolves and lions do in fact overlap their ranges?  I think that's probable, but it would have been waaaaaay back before human ascendancy.

As with all the paintings I look at, I try to imagine time and place--what compelled the artist to paint this particular image?  Were wolves and lions a serious issue in Flanders in the 1600s?  Somehow I doubt it.  Did Paul and his wife (assuming he was married) sit around the kitchen table, and he says (in Flemish), "You know, honey, I think I'm going to paint a fight between a lion and a wolf."  Then she might have said, "Better make it three wolves--lions are tough, you know!  Make sure to put in a bloody dead sheep for shock value."

You get the idea.  I always, always, try to keep in mind that these paintings we see hundreds of years later were painted by people as real as you and me, not dusty figures partially lost in history.


[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!]

Cats in Art: Catfight in a Pantry (de Vos)

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.  

This is the second of three posts featuring some art from Paul de Vos.

Image credit Museo del Prado, Catfight in a Pantry (alternatively called Cats Fighting in a Larder), Paul de Vos, ca 1630, oil on canvas, 46" x 70", held by Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain.


Per the Prado web site:

With the owners or house servants away, the animals sneak into the larder, giving free rein to their instincts. This leads to a fight. Scenes of animal fights in domestic settings were customary in mid-seventeenth-century Flemish painting. They were also frequent in the literature of proverbs, where they were interpreted as moral allusions to the abandonment of responsibilities and their consequences. Paul de Vos followed in the footsteps of his brother-in-law, Frans Snyders (1579-1657), making identical still lifes with animals and even repeating the compositional schemes and models, but with a more delicate touché and warmer shading. This type of scene was very successful among collectors of that time and was repeated on innumerable occasions. 

Four cats already in the fray, with three more ready to hop in.  About all I can say is that these are very bad cats.  Certainly NOT at all like my kitties!

As in my last week's de Vos post (and as I have previously observed with numerous other artists), de Vos is really good at capturing the essence of catness.  


[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!]

Cats in Art: Still Life With Game and Lobster (de Vos)

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.  

Today and the next couple weeks I'll feature some art from Paul de Vos.

Image credit The State Hermitage Museum, Still Life With Game and Lobster, Pauwel (Paul) de Vos, ca 1610, oil on canvas, 47" x 71", held by The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

And the obligatory close-up of the scairdy (is that spelled right?) cat in the center foreground:

And here's a Gotcha, noted by yours truly.  I now consider myself an amateur art historian based upon me doing my weekly Cats in Art post for over 6 years now.  

Here's the error: Bugler's book attributes this image to the Flemish artist Frans Snyders, which is a mistake. A diligent search of the web confirms the painter as Pauwel (Paul) de Vos.  While Frans Snyders did do many still life paintings, including one long-windedly entitled Still Life with Game Suspended on Hooks, a Lobster on a Porcelain Plate and a Basket of Grapes, Apples, Plums and Other Fruit on a Partly Draped Table with Two Monkeys (link is here) he did not paint the image with the kitty above.  It was definitely painted by Paul de Vos...although I came to find out that de Vos and Snyders were brothers-in-law!  Perhaps they even painted together in the same studio.

I can only assume that when Bulger assembled the art for her book, the presence of the words "game" and "lobster" in Snyders' title above threw her off.

Just check out this page (you'll need to scroll down to the "S" paintings) for nearly a score of other Snyders paintings beginning with the words "Still Life...." in the title and note the similarities.  This must have been one of the schools of painting during the time when both artists were active in the 1600s.

Back to the painting itself.  Bugler tells us: 

This tempting array of game and fish is enough to whet the appetite of any domestic animal.  The dog and cat have made their stealthy advances on the display, but have encountered each other, and it looks as the though the dog is about to gain the upper hand in the confrontation.

My take?  Yes, the dog has prevailed...in this case.  But in the long run, of course cats rule!  Now that that's out of the way, regarding this image, the poor kitty has been psyched out, big time.  But if they would agree to peaceful co-existence, there's plenty of food for everyone.  Just share, you guys.

Also, de Vos has well captured the essence of scared catness.  He must have had kitties to have painted this one so well: the ears, the eyes, the tail, the overall posture.

And another gem from the Hermitage web page, regarding the provenance of this painting:

Acquisition date: Transferred to the Hermitage from the collection of Catherine the Great in 1772

Is that cool, or what?  Catherine the Great actually owned this de Vos painting.  It was in her house.  She saw it, hopefully admired it, and safely passed it along to posterity.  Whatever else one might stay about CTG, this was a good thing!

[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!]

Cats in Art: Cats Fighting in a Larder (de Vos)

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.

Image credit The Prado's on-line image gallery, here.  Paul de Vos, Cats Fighting in a Larder, 1663, oil on canvas, 45" x 67", held by The Prado, Madrid, Spain.  

Zuffi calls this painting "Cats in a Larder," omitting the word "fighting," and comments:

De Vos' cats are truly wild! One after the other, they fling themselves from the small window of a pantry and roll around unceremoniously, in poses that seem incompatible with the usual feline dignity and composure.

But every cat needs to get its freak on occasionally.