Cats In Art

One of my favorite subjects is cats in art. I love it because it magically takes to very different things, cats and art, both of which I'm passionate about, and combines them. The fact that so much of it is fun just adds to the pleasure.

The images shown here come from the imagination of well-known cat artist Deborah Julian. Julian is a fine art photographer with a concentration on street photography. But just like artists who came before her - Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard - she learned that having cats in her workshop meant having cats in your work. Then, one day, she wondered, What would it be like if famous artists had my cats?

The question launched her innovative work of finding interesting places for cats in art. Click any link for more.

CONTENTS AT A GLANCE

1. New Cats In Art
 
2. Abstract Expressionism From Famous Artis...
 
3. Cats In Art In Wooden Keepsake/Memory Bo...
4. Ballet Class Visitor: Cats In Art
 
5. Cats In Art From Other Places
 
6. Cats in Art: Cezanne's Cats
7. Cats In Art: Pierre Bonnard's Bathers......
 
8. A Cat Artist Re-imagines Van Gogh's Bedr...
9. A Decorative Wooden Box For Van Gogh's B...
 
10. La Danse At The Center of the Universe (...
 
11. Jeannette's Cats In Art
12. More Cats In Art
 
13. Even More: Cats and Cat Art
 
14. What's up with cats in art?

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The Cat In Art, Gallery #3

The Cat In Art, Gallery #3 is a collection of some new cat art along with some popular favorites from Deborah Julian Art.

Here you see a new favorite, After Lunch With Pierre Bonnard. The cat artist took her inspiration from Bonnard's paintings of his families country home. He often included cats and dogs, since they were familiar in the house.

The cat in art is a theme that has been explored from both historical and artistic perspectives. Images go back thousands of years to some of the earliest primitive art. Cats have always been with and inspired us.

CONTENTS AT A GLANCE

1. Edward Hopper Meets The Cat In Art
   
2. Bathers (Pierre Bonnard) Cat Print
   
3. Everything Tastes Better With Cat Hair I...
 
4. More Cats In Art From Amazon
   
5. Cats In Art, Matisse Goldfish
   
6. Love Is In The Air Cat Art Print
 
7. Picasso's Cat Before A Mirror Cat Print
   
8. Handle With Care From The Cat In Art Gal...
   
9. Chat Noir From The Cat Art Gallery
 
10. Love Me Love My Cat: Cat Art Print
   
11. A Woman Can Tell A Lot About A Man
   
12. More cats, more art...

'via Blog this'

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Some Famous Artists' Cats

Cat artist Deborah Julian has staked a claim to a unique cat art niche: Famous Artists' Cats. With her training in art history, work as a fine art gallery director and passion for cats, she's arrived at an impressive blending of them into some beautiful and often funny images.

Whether she does a takeoff inspired by Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso, the results are memorable. Now, with a decent-sized library of pictures of artists' with cats, she's branched out to add the most popular to commercial items like handmade keepsake boxes.

Browse around Famous Artists' Cats and have some fun looking at what she's done with fine are and cat art.

Contents at a Glance

1. Bathers, Cat Art Inspired by Pierre Bonn...
2. Matisse Goldfish from Famous Artists' Ca...
3. Invisible Cat, Inspired By Magritte
4. Milk For Gauguin's Cat
5. Famous Artists' Cats With A Twist
6. Van Gogh's Bedroom (Artist's Cats Added)
7. More cats
8. About The Author                

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2 New Handmade Cat Cards from Deborah Julian Art

The interesting thing about handmade cat cards from Deborah Julian's workshop is their originality, as they combine the old tradition of fine art and the newer, popular strain of cat art. Both of the cat cards we'll look at here originate as a cat print before it was adapted for a handmade cat card.

Cat Cards Inspired by Famous Artists: Pierre Bonnard.

The first is cat art rich with colors and a setting, both characteristic of paintings by Pierre Bonnard. In After Lunch With Pierre Bonnard, Deborah Julian imagines two house cats appreciating the dining room after all the humans have left.

Dogs and cats are not uncommon in the scenes Bonnard painted from his family's country home. A devoted post-impressionist until his death, he frequently took photographs to work from, instead of  working with sketches or painting directly from life.

The net result was painting extraordinarily rich in detail and saturated with colors.

Deborah Julian has another cat print inspired by Bonnard: Bathers from Famous Artists Cats.

More Cat Cards Inspired by Famous Artists: Edward Hopper

Although a great admirer who has studied his artwork extensively, Deborah Julian took her time before creating her first cat print based on Edward Hopper. Cats In Edward Hopper's Window recreates a familiar scene from Hoppers urban art. His paintings were carefully crafted to resemble realistic settings while actually be adventures in surreal expressionism.

Having been through many exhibit that featured or included paintings by Hopper, I've never seen a cat, and there is no reason to think he especially liked cats, and people writing about him tend to gloss over his moodiness and the distance he kept from people. Even his wife Jo, his frequent model who was largely responsible for his commercial success, had this to say about him: "Sometimes talking to Eddie is just like dropping a stone in a well, except that it doesn't thump when it hits bottom.

Never the less, as you can see, as long as he had some good windows to look at, the cats are willing to populate them anyway.

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Handmade Keepsake Boxes: Matisse Goldfish | Deborah Julian Art

A new entry from the collection: Handmade Keepsake Boxes: Matisse Goldfish | Deborah Julian Art.

In Matisse Goldfish, Deborah creates a variation on one of Henri Matisse's most loved art objects–brightly colored goldfish. A black cat sits mesmerized on the floor beneath the bowl while a tiger-striped cat has climbed up on the furniture to peak in from behind, his image magnified by the glass.

The scene is in Paris, and you can see the Seine flowing below the window in the background.

Now, Deborah has adapted this image for decoration on a wooden handmade keepsake box. Handmade Keepsake Boxes: Matisse Goldfish | Deborah Julian Art is a beautiful example of cat art at its finest and most practical.

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Four Handmade Keepsake Boxes With Cat Art

Creating handmade keepsake boxes is a delicate art requiring many more steps to turn out a great piece than buyers can detect. Cat artist Deborah Julian begins with two things: a cat art design and a plain, hinged wooden box.

After deciding which wooden box is best suited for the design she's chosen, Deborah choses a primary color that will accent the cat art she's picked. Several coats of paint must be applied and allowed to dry thoroughly. The wood determines how many coats are required.

Next, she creates a museum-quality Giclée print at the precise size needed. The image is attached to the top of the box, using decoupage, and again allowed to dry.

A final step requires photographing the finished box from multiple angles that will give customers a good look at it.

I've picked four of my favorite handmade keepsake boxes to feature here. Cézanne's Cats is shown in the above section.

Below, you can see Van Gogh's Bedroom (Artist's Cats Added), You Can Tell A Lot About A Man By How His Cat Feels About Him, and Ballet Class Visitor (Inspired by Degas). Enjoy.

David Stone

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Henri Matise: Famous Artists Cats

Famous Artists Cats: George Meets Matisse

Henri Matisse, like Gustav Klimt, Pierre Bonnard and other famous artists, loved cats. He occasionally drew or painted them, but mostly he enjoyed their soothing company, just as you and I do. We're not all so different, even those of us who are not artistic geniuses.

George With Matisse

But we can go you one better. Our cat, George, also loves Matisse. George was our first cat, and "as everybody knows," cats don't know art from wallpaper. It lacks a strong, apetite-encouraging sent. It doesn't move or dangle strings. Ergo, cats have no interest.

Tell it to George.

We hung a framed Matisse print in over an antique hutch in our dining room. George loved to jump up on the hutch. It was a good place to get off the floor and watch the world's going on. Once in a while, he'd take a meal there.

Soon, though, we noticed him staring directly at the Matisse print. It's an expressionist symphony of softer colors with a vase and a leafy plant playing hide and seek in a window.

George spent a lot of time staring at that print, just like a visitor in a gallery stops to really sink into the art. We came to accept that our cat loved Matisse, just as we do. Then something extraordinary happened.

Some cats have abilities so extraordinary we find them hard to believe. Most me some sort of illusion or feline trickery. (They are good at trickery, after all.) Cats we know have become invisible for long periods before reappearing with a "What's the big deal?" look on their faces. Others go from one place to another in a exercise something like a quantum leap. In other words, they go from here to there without ever being anywhere between. They leap.

Every cat we know reads minds and uses telepathy to communicate, and each is usually disappointed in the results. Fortunately, they love us anyway.

Anyway, we still found it incredible when George suddenly inserted himself in a Matisse still life. One day, there he was, staring back at us as if he owned the colorful space full of fruits and birds flying in the background. And there he also was, sleeping like a lord on our sofa.

Sometimes, with cats, it's best to just shake your head and accept the unexplainable truth.

 George Meets Matisse found its way into Famous Artists Cats, a collection of cats in art for which there is no explanation except that cats just do astonishing things.

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Famous Artist's Cats: Magritte and The Invisible Cat

Invisible Cat From Famous Artists Cats

What artist could better inspire fresh cat art in Deborah Julian's inventive series, Famous Artists' Cats than René Magritte?

After all haven't cats already mastered invisibility and quantum leaping? Born in Belgium in 1898, Magritte went on to paint some of the most surreal psychological mysteries at a time when what we consider modern art was being invented.

In the imaginary worlds Magritte painted, business men with bowler hats drifted rigidly in space. A simple neighborhood setting was haunted at night with ungraspable foreboding. All-seeing eyes appeared.

While art lovers have always found Magritte's paintings unsettling, cats have not. Cats give every impression that they find surreal shenanigans to be the normal order of things among perpetually confused human beings. Many of us assume that cats run away when we approach because they're frightened when, in fact, it's because they just prefer not to get involved.

Invisible Cat by Deborah Julian
Famous Artists Cats

This explains why cats will agree to friendship only after food they like has been introduced. Depending on the cat, a period of indefinite duration follows before you might be allow to play with or even pet the cat. After that, it's a gradual transition to the point where you have a chance to give up a favorite chair because the cat likes to nap in it or even sacrifice a major section of your bed at night.

Which brings us to The Invisible Cat. In Magritte's Invisible World, he painted partially sculpted border on what appears to be a formal balcony. In the background, gray-black clouds threaten above what appears to be a vast, misty sea. Sammy, famous, among other things, for disrupting Degas' Hat Shop, was having none of it. His decision to curl up next to the rock for a moment of meditation was immediate.

Because such acts do not require any time to pass, Sammy quantum leaped from his favorite lounging place to Magritte's canvas, instantly creating The Invisible Cat.


You can find more cat art inspired by great artists in Deborah Julian's Famous Artists' Cats, a series that includes images inspired by Van Gogh, Matisse, Degas and others.

Trending now at Deborah Julian Art:

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