Cats in Art: The Education of the Virgin (Fragonard)

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).

This will be the second of 5 posts on the cat art of Jean Honore Fragonard.

Image credit The Athenaeum, The Education of the Virgin, Jean-Honore Fragonard, 1773,  33" x 45", oil on canvas, held by Fine Arts Museum-Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA, USA.

And the close-up of that fine kitty over there on the right:

I've been to this museum, but frankly, I don't recall anything about it.  It was awhile ago, long before Cats in Art.  But I surely regret not being able to describe this piece from my own personal recollection.

First, what bothers me about this painting.  The Virgin herself (I presume it's Mary) looks kinda doll-like and puny in comparison to her oversized teacher.  The proportions seem a bit off.  Then there's the cat....

To Fragonard's everlasting credit, he felt compelled to include a cat in the theme of "The Education of the Virgin."  Good on him, knowledge of felines is surely next to godliness.  But his kitty rendering, like last week's, makes the poor cat look doll-like (akin to Mary?) and unrealistic.  Perhaps it's the same kitty model?

One final point, at least the cat is showing an interest in the painter.  Although Fragonard's image to me seems off, he does capture well the spirit of curiosity that is 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: The Music Lesson (Fragonard)

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).

This will be the first of 5 posts on the cat art of Jean Honore Fragonard.

Image credit Louvre Museum, The Music Lesson, Jean Honore Fragonard, 1770, oil on canvas, 43" x 48", held by the Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

And the kitty close-up:

Frederix Vitoux and Elisabeth Foucart-Walter, in their book Cats in the Louvre, provide this analysis:

Fragonard liked featuring animals in his compositions....The cat in this Music Lesson, comfortably ensconced on a chair next to a pandora, is not, however, the most successful feline on Fargonard's oeuvre, at least from a morphological point of view.  Still, such loose treatment gives him an amusing look and the eye is fatefully attracted to him.

My take is just as discussed above: this is a sorry-looking cat...but cute.  The cat is where one's eye is first drawn, and only after you scope out the kitty do you notice the other pair of characters...whose minds are seemingly not on their music.

[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: Portrait of Two Children With a Cat and a Canary

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).

Two weeks ago I posted on Francois-Hubert Drouais where I delved into a pair of paintings that are similar but not identical.  Here's another painting attributed to Drouais that I find fascinating:

Image credit art auction site Artnet, Portrait of Two Children With a Cat and a Canary, middle 1700s, attributed to Francois-Hubert Drouais, oil on canvas, 30" x 41", holder unspecified.

And the kitty-kid-canary close-up:

Couple reactions to this painting:

--Do you think--as I do--that the human eyes and the cat eyes are remarkably similar?  Rather tall, tending toward round, and not so much oblong?  

--Cat, canary, young children....what could possibly go wrong?

--Despite the inherent danger of the situation, the mood of the painting (yes, paintings do have moods!) is quite benign and placid.  Sure, the kitty is eyeing up the canary but it seems more interested in play than in prey.

--If you click over to the Artnet site (my image credit above) you will note that there have been over 300 art auctions of the paintings of Francois-Hubert Drouais (or his emulators). Wow.  There is certainly a HUGE art auction market of which ordinary people have little knowledge.  And I am not being snide when I say I get it: rich people have to have someplace to park their money.  You buy upscale things, possessions, connotations of wealth.

[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: Olympia (Manet)

Sorry about being dark last week, was on vacation and my scheduled post somehow failed to run (I'm pretty sure it was my operator error).

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).

Here's an image from Edouard Manet that I used here at Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 10 year old human being) about a year ago (you may want to click over to see my comments):

In my previous blog post I commented how the black kitty down at the foot of the bed is pretty much invisible, being black-on-black.  Also how I ran that post prior to visiting the Orsay Museum in Paris...and now I have stood in front of this magnificent painting and been awed by it.  Wow!


In browsing the (so-called) complete works of Manet, I just ran across this preliminary sketch that perhaps was used as a study prior to painting the image:

Image credit here, Olympia, Edouard Manet, no other information available.


And the kitty close-up:

Too bad Manet didn't emphasize the black cat more in the final painting.  Or maybe he did, and the years have not been kind to the painting.  Many images over the years fade, or get coated with grime and haze such that details are lost.  Or--and this is perhaps heretical--Manet screwed up his background and simply made it too dark in the final oil painting.

Here's the photo I took of the cat when I was at the Orsay.  The poor kitty deserves better, getting kinda lost in the background:

[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!]