Cats in Art: A Peasant Family (Le Nain)

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).

The bride and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in France this fall where we were privileged to see both the Louvre and Orsay Museums.  Of the two, the Orsay was much better--less crowded, could get closer to the paintings, more cats.

This is post 3 of 4 on the art of the Le Main brothers, Louis, Antoine and Mathieu.

Image credit Wikimedia Commons, A Peasant Family, the Le Nain brothers, ca 1640, oil on copper, image size unspecified, held in a private collection.

This poor kitty is surrounded by 5 humans whose feet are right there, and one is even playing a musical instrument.  Enough to make any cat cringe like this one is doing.

The painting is bright and airy, the peasants depicted all appear to be healthy and fairly happy looking, so all in all a very pleasant image.  Just have to work on making that cat a tad more relaxed and confident.

[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!]