Cats in Art: A Boy and a Girl With a Cat and an Eel (Leyster)

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 recently 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.

Image credit The Catster, A Boy and a Girl With a Cat and an Eel, Judith Leyster, ca 1635, 23" x 19', oil on oak, held by The National Gallery, London, UK.

And the sad kitty close-up:

The laconic comment from The Catster:

Speaking of action, Judith Leyster’s 17th-century A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel is thought to allude to the Dutch saying, “He who plays with cats gets scratched.” This fancifully collared young lass is counting down the seconds to her brother’s violent feline education.

The official museum website, dreadfully British, tells us:

It has recently been suggested that this painting serves as a warning against foolish and mischievous behaviour. The boy has used the small eel to entice the cat into his grasp and then withholds the bait, while the girl teases the cat further by pulling its tail. Judging by its extended claws, the cat is about to scratch the boy. The picture thus seems to allude to the Dutch saying: 'He who plays with cats gets scratched', meaning he who looks for trouble will get it. It was common in Dutch 17th-century painting to use children in order to point out the foolish behaviour of adults.

Judith Leyster, a painter of genre scenes, portraits and still lifes, was mainly active in Haarlem and Amsterdam. In 1636 she married the painter Jan Miense Molenaer, whose work is also represented in the collection. The broad brushstrokes, the cropped composition and the depiction of youthful happiness all show Frans Hals’ influence on Leyster.

This poor kitty's fuse is smoldering.  I don't think the explosion is imminent, but still some seconds away.  There's still time to defuse the situation and let the cat loose....failing that, some scratches are inevitable.

This painting also has some other attributes: did you notice that it was painted by a woman....and that in the National Gallery blurb about it, they make the point that painter Judith Leyster's work shows the influence of her teacher, one Frans Hals?

That may well be.  But over the years of doing this, I think I see an unconscious bias towards female artists wherein any description tends to emphasize influences rather than the artist's own style and talents.

I also note that on the museum web site we see that this painting is not currently on display.  Not on display?!  What's wrong with these dolts?  I'd be happy to hang it here by my computer and regard that tricky little kitty face lovingly every single day for the rest of my life.

[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: Youths Playing With the Cat (Bloemaert)

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 recently returned from a wonderful vacation in France 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.

Today is the last of 4 posts on the cat art of David III Ryckaert....except after I had this all queued up and ready to post this morning I took another quick look and realized that this was actually a painting by Abraham Bloemaert.  So you're only getting 3 Ryckaert works instead of four.

Image credit Wikimedia Commons, Abraham Bloemaert, Youths Playing With the Cat, ca 1620, 35" x 28", oil on canvas, held by Fondazione Musei Senesi, Sienna, Italy.

And the kitty close-up:

I cannot recall how I steered myself wrong on the provenance and painter, but in my web travels I ran across a site called Sad Cats in Art History--to which you really should hop on over and scope out (provided you do come back here!)--where the resident blogger comments with this gem:

 “See? He LOVES it when we pretend he’s a baby.”  Celebrated for his depiction of historical subjects, 17th-century painter-printmaker Abraham Bloemaert recorded in this painting (Youths Playing with the Cat) how two young Dutchmen learned to perform first aid on extremely short notice.

This cat is about to erupt.  I'm talking about a major detonation, and the poor kid holding the cat is smack dab in the epicenter of the impending blast, even though it's the dotard on the left who is doing the actual pulling of the poor feline's tail.

[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: Peasant Woman With a Cat

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 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.

Today is the third of 4 posts on the cat art of David III Ryckaert, plus a personal note at the end.

Image credit The Hermitage Museum, Peasant Woman With a Cat, David III Ryckaert, ca 1640, 11" x 14", oil on canvas (transferred from panel), held by The State Hermitage Museum, At. Petersburg, Russia.

 And the kitty close-up:

From The Hermitage website:

David Ryckaert III was a follower of the celebrated master of genre painting Adriaen Brouwer. The Hermitage's pair of paintings by Ryckaert owe both their subject and their composition to works by Brouwer: Peasant Woman with a Cat to Brouwer's Woman with a Cat. In the Hermitage painting Ryckaert added amusing details: the old woman is feeding porridge on a spoon to the cat that is wrapped in a blanket like an infant. The painting Peasant with a Dog derives from Brouwer's work Good Friends, which also depicts a peasant with a dog. In Ryckaert's canvas, however, the subject is expanded with the motif of training the animal: the elderly man is holding the little dog by the paw and giving it the command "Sit!". David Ryckaert III's genre scenes have at the same time a hidden metaphorical meaning. The painting of Peasant with a Dog can be interpreted as an "allegory of the sense of touch" and its companion piece as an "allegory of taste".

So....never knew how much kitties loved oatmeal.  The poor cat looks positively stricken.  Oh, the indignities and price they pay for domesticity!

On an unrelated note, the origins of this blog were in ultrarunning, then I began to mix in some politics and philosophy, then the last couple of years it's been exclusively dedicated to Cats in Art.  People change, I've changed, and what was once important has less importance now.

But I did want to note a particular milestone that I had yesterday: I've satisfied a promise I made to myself some 29 years ago, in 1989. 

My 66 year old dad died of congestive heart failure that spring, when I was gearing up for the Pittsburgh Marathon.  Dad's health had been poor for years due to diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.  At the funeral I told myself that I would still be running marathons when I was that age. Well, having just turned 66, it was time to put up or shut up. 

Yesterday’s Western Maryland Rail Trail Marathon in Hancock MD went very well for me. Course was 6.5 miles, out-and-back on a rail trail, so back to the start was 13. Then we did it again...so all in all we covered the same segment 4 times to yield the marathon distance of 26 miles. It was wooded and pretty, so there was no boredom factor. 

I ran the first 3 legs continuously but slowly at around 11 min pace. Then as I tired out on the final segment I mixed in a 4 minute walking break at each mile mark. 

Finish time was 5:22, so it's obvious that my speed is nothing to write home about (my personal best is 3:26).

So, a promise made and fulfilled, and a fitting tribute to my father.

Cats in Art: A Peasant Couple at a Spinning Wheel by a Fire (Ryckaert)

Gary Note: Sorry this is a day late, life interfering with blogging again)

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 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.

Today is the second of 4 posts on the cat art of David III Ryckaert.

Image credit Artnet, A Peasant Couple at a Spinning Wheel by a Fire,
 David III Ryckaert (or a follower thereof), oil on canvas, 22" x 18", holder unspecified. 

And the kitty close-up, perhaps facing off against the canine over there to the right:

This painting seems routine enough: a plain couple doing regular stuff.  The only actions seems to be the cat at the bottom left, who is either alarmed at something or is scampering in play.  The resolution, unfortunately, is poor, but to me the cat is not looking at the dog in repose but rather seems to be looking at something past the dog and more to the front....an object that will forever remain unknown.

As for provenance of this work, I cannot seem to find any info beyond stumbling onto the image on Artnet.  Perhaps it is titled differently and/or not attracted to Ryckaert.  Just another example of some dead-end detective work in art history that makes my Cats in Art series so interesting (at at times frustrating!).

[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 Painter's Studio (Ryckaert)

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 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.

Today is the first of 4 posts on the cat art of David III Ryckaert.

Image credit Wikimedia Commons, A Painter's Studio, David III Ryckaert, 1638, oil on panel, 23" x 37", held by The Louvre Museum, Paris, France. 

And the kitty close-up:

From the Cats in the Louvre book by Frederic Vitoux and Elisabeth Foucart-Walter:

As an adroit animal, handily able to thread his way without danger among objects of all kinds--even the most valuable--a  cat is quite at home in an artist's studio.  He can moreover, make himself useful in exterminating mice, which are all too fond of canvas and similar materials.   

The one we see here snoozing on the bare floor just beside the painter at his easel is perhaps exhausted after a long night spent chasing pesky rodents.  He is shown coiled into a ball, in a particularly well-observed attitude.

OK, I gotta pick a bit: this cat is a calico and therefore a female (we've had a pair of calicos so this is near and dear to my heart!).  Nevertheless, the description is likely otherwise correct.  Although--let me quibble again--it is not at all certain that the kitty was mousing all night.  In fact, chances are that she is just doing the lazy cat routine, simply working on her daily 19 hours of sleep.

Perhaps these medieval cats really were not mousers so much as dear companions and muses for their human artist friends.

This work's subject or title is a popular one.  Previously here at Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 10 year old human being) I've featured this pair of posts:

The Painter's Studio, by Jose del Castillo, on 27 May 2012 

The Artist's Studio, by Gustave Courbet, on 12 Aug 2012

[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!]