Cats in Art: Children Playing With a Cat (Molenaer)

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 first of a series of posts featuring some art from Jan Miense Moleaer, a Dutch artist from the middle 1600s.

Image credit The Aetheneum, Children Playing with a Cat, Jan Miense Molenaer, ca. 1628, oil on canvas, 26" x 21", held by Musee des Beaux-Arts, Dunkerque.

Rather than go on at length, let's keep it very simple.  This rich, cheery, well-executed painting with its vibrant yet muted colors just makes me smile after nearly 400 years.

Bottom line: two happy Dutch kids.  One somewhat disgruntled Dutch cat.  A superb composition.

[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 Fish and Cat (Peeters)

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 two posts featuring some art from Clara Peeters, a Belgian artist from the early 1600s.

Image credit National Museum of Women in the Arts, Still Life of Fish and Cat, Clara Peeters, after 1620, oil on panel, 13" x 18", held by National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.

As I pointed out last week, again we see a disconnect in title, although here it's the fairly small difference between "with" and "of."  While Bugler calls this image Still Life of Fish and Cat, all the Internet references I found call it Still Life With Fish and Cat.

Regardless, Caroline Bugler talks about Peeters' art:

A number show a live cat with fish and other seafood, and this is a typical example, with its assembly of relatively humbler objects and its restricted palette.  Peeters was skilled at rendering texture: here the carp/s slippery skin and the dull gleam of the ceramic colander make an interesting contrast with the cat's soft fur.  The vigilant feline, with its paws on a small fish, has a proprietorial air, its ears turned slightly to listen for an interloper who might whisk away its prize--could that be us, the viewer?

Compared to last week's post, this painting seems dark, gloomy and brooding...although that may simply be due to the accumulated centuries of grime and haze of hanging in one house versus a different house.  So perhaps Peeters' original painting was as bright as her similar painting that I featured last week.

As I said last week, this cat is rendered quite faithfully, watching protectively over some fishy bounty.  Clara Peeters--some 4 centuries ago--obviously knew her kitties.


[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 of Fish, Oysters and Crayfish with a Cat (Peeters)

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 first of two posts featuring some art from Clara Peeters, a Belgian artist from the early 1600s.

Image credit Wikimedia, Still Life of Fish, Oysters and Crayfish with a Cat, Clara Peeters, 1615, oil on panel, 13" x 19", held in a private collection.

There are several interesting things about this painting.

First, this particular painting is known today as either Still Life of Fish, Oysters and Crayfish with a Cat, or the title really is A Still Life with Carp in a Ceramic Colander, Oysters, Crayfish, Roach and a Cat on the Ledge Beneath.  I opted for the former (shorter) title.

I think that all this confusion harks back to the fact that in 1615, artist Clara Peeters did not write her title of the painting on the back of it.  Thus it was left to later curators and art historians to come up with a descriptive title...some of which were in conflict.

Second, other than the Bugler book and the linked Wikimedia reference (and a similar one from Wikipedia), I could find no other images of this painting...perhaps because it is held in a private collection.

Third, in her book Caroline Bugler refers to this work as Still Life with Fish and Cat.  As it turns out, that title actually refers to a different painting, quite similar to the image above, which I will feature next week (it is held at the National Women's Museum of Art in Washington, DC).

Anyway, back to the Bugler book, where she talks about Peeters' art:

A number [of paintings] show a live cat with fish and other seafood, and this is a typical example, with its assembly of relatively humbler objects and its restricted palette.  Peeters was skilled at rendering texture: here the carp/s slippery skin and the dull gleam of the ceramic colander make an interesting contrast with the cat's soft fur.  The vigilant feline, with its paws on a small fish, has a proprietorial air, its ears turned slightly to listen for an interloper who might whisk away its prize--could that be us, the viewer?

My thoughts?  This painting is bright, alive and vibrant.  The kitty is rendered perfectly--the eyes, the ears, the posture, the attitude.  Here at my Sunday Cats in Art feature, if I said it once, I've said it a hundred times about a hundered different artists: Peeters must have had cats to have been able to render a kitty so perfectly.


[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: 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!]