There's no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat.
- Wesley Bates

Cats have captured the eye of artists from da Vinci to Renoir, to Andy Warhol.

Leonardo da Vinci caught many of the typical cat poses in a page of drawings of cats but most artists only depicted the cat as a component of a painting. Renoir's cats were usually contented, happy cats depicted sharing the lives of their owners.

Theophile Steinlen, a Franco-Swiss late 19th century artist, produced thousands of paintings of cats who stalked the alleys and rooftops of Montmartre in Paris, France. Montmartre and its people was a favorite subject of Steinlen and he often painted scenes of the harsher aspects of life in the area. In addition to paintings and drawings, he also did sculpture on a limited basis, mostly of cats.

Steinlen was part of the artistic crowd at the caberet, Le Chat Noir, and that led to commissions to do poster art for the cabaret owner and other commercial enterprises. Posters were the advertisements of the time and one of the most famous was an 1897 advertisement for a milk company featuring a cat watching a young girl drinking a glass of milk. Others advertised chocolates and cosmetics. Today Steinlen posters are one of the most collectable and feature in collections in galleries worldwide.

It is said that the cat is the perfect model for artists at it remains in the same pose for long periods, but perhaps it is the elegance and gracefulness that has always appealed to the artistic eye.

Article printed courtesy of Petnet