Cats in Art: "Madonna Cat" (Mind)

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 several posts on the works of Gottfried Mind, AKA The Raphael of Cats.

Image credit The Great Cat, title unspecified, Gottfried Mind, no other information available.

And the kitty close-up:

I was going to post a famous Christmas painting that contained a cat...only I totally struck out in locating such an image.  There were plenty of opportunities to insert a cat into a famous painting but so far as I could tell, there is no "great master" with a Christmas theme and a cat.

So I elected to remain with the art of Gottlieb Mind for another week and searched his images for a kitty with a Madonna-like expression.  

Look at that cat face: the word that comes to mind is serene.  Much like Mary has been depicted in nativity art over the ages.

The caveat, of course, is that Mind's works tend to be somewhat under the radar.  In fact, this image only comes from an art appreciation site called The Great Cat, thus I am relying on the unverified Internet that this is really a Gottfried Mind image.

So, suspend disbelief, as I have, and treat this image as a Christmas cat from the pen of Gottfried Mind some 200+ years ago.  Merry Christmas!


[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 Cat in a Cage (Mind)

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 several posts on the works of Gottfried Mind, AKA The Raphael of Cats.

Image credit The Great Cat, A Cat in a Cage, Gottfried Mind, undated, pen and ink with wash on paper, held in a private collection.

And the kitty close-up:

This image appears in Bugler's book with the image from last week of the cat having the upper hand. With this image, the shoe is on the other paw, so to speak.  She tells us:

In what appears to be a pendant to Cat Killing Mice in a Landscape, the mice have got their own back on their arch-enemy by imprisoning it in a cage--a most undignified gaol, in which it sits like an oversized bird.  The theme of mice taunting cats is an ancient one....It relates to the notion of "the world turned upside down," in which oppressors are held in bondage by those they normally oppress.

Mind's cat--if you look at the close-up--really does not seem to be too disturbed.  Its look is more one of interest rather than fear.  Perhaps it's been in the slammer before.

The life and works of Gottfried Mind is a PhD  project just waiting to happen.  I Googled "Biography of Gottfried Mind"and came up virtually empty.  Ditto for "Complete Works of Gottfried Mind."  Go ahead and try it--you'll find some bits and pieces, but there is no authoritative expert.

You could be that person.

For example, one search result that came back: seems that The British Museum does hold a work entitled "Mindiana, Life of Gottfried Mind."  But here is how it starts out:

The album is inscribed at the beginning with eleven pages of an account of the life of the artist, written by G. Fairholme: 'Life of Godfrey Mind. / commonly called / The Raphael of Cats * Amongst the endless varieties of character & disposition presented to our contemplation in the study of the human mind, it would be difficult to find one more worthy of our attention than the unfortunate subject of the present memoir: for the character of Godfrey Mind exhibits such an anomalism of mental powers, as has perhaps never been recorded, to a similar degree. This poor cretin may be regarded as a singular instance of innate natural talent of a high class, & of a particular kind, combined with almost total deficiency of reason, upon any other subject, however simple. 

"This poor cretin."  Really??  Art scholars: Get to work!  Now!

[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: Cat Killing Mice in a Landscape (Mind)

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.   

After several posts on some art that the bride and I just saw in Italy on a wonderful visit in October to the Amalfi Coast, we are back to whatever passes for normal around here.

Image credit art.com (an art reproduction house), Cat Killing Mice in a Landscape, Gottfried Mind, ca 1800, pen and ink with wash on paper, dimensions unspecified, held in a private collection.

And the mandatory kitty close-up:

Bugler tells us about Gottfried Minds and this image:

Described in his own lifetime as feeble-minded (he was probably autistic), he nonetheless had one special gift: the ability to draw and paint cats.....Here is an oddly outsized tortoiseshell and white cat enjoying a gastronomic orgy; mice flee from his gluttonous paws.  According to contemporary reports, the artist's cat Minette was always by his side as he worked.  She luckily escaped the culling of more than 800 cats ordered by Berne authorities in 1809 in an attempt to counteract a rabies epidemic, but it is said that the artist never recovered from the mass slaughter of his favorite creatures.

Several of my observations:

--I credit this work to the site art.com, which sells art reproductions.  Since this work is held in a private collection, I was pretty unsuccessful at finding the work online in any other venue than a for-profit site.

--Note than in Bugler's analysis of the work, she says "...from his gluttonous paws..." when the cat, being a calico, is a female.  Bugler does correctly identify Mind's cat Minette (what a cool name!!) as a she a couple of sentences later.  

--This calico is in feline heaven--mice everywhere!

[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: Espirit de Baculard d'Armand (Greuze)

Busy times these days, here's a short post from 5 years back that I still particularly like (it originally ran on 4 Dec 2011).

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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 Scholar's Resource, here.  Espirit de Baculard d'Armand (or in English, The Son of Francois Thomas de Baculard d'Armand), Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1776, oil on oval canvas, held by Musee des Beaux-Arts, Troyes, France.  

Zuffi observes, on the art of this period:

The cat faced up to this age of revolution and change with its customary nonchalance and proverbial adaptability.

In other words, tell me when it's over, but in the meantime, keep on petting me or I'll get even more annoyed than I am now....