Cats sleep, anywhere,
Any table, any chair
Top of piano, window-ledge,
In the middle, on the edge,
Open drawer, empty shoe,
Anybody’s lap will do,
Fitted in a cardboard box,
In the cupboard, with your frocks –
Anywhere! They don’t care!
Cats sleep anywhere.
– Eleanor Farjeon
The white angora cat will have none of that brushing business thanks very much! I like the small details in this painting: the dog in the bottom left corner, the servant woman in the shadow behind the door, and the eerie reflections of the other people in the room.
The painting shows Julie Manet, the daughter of fellow artists Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot, and her kitten who seems to be so blissed out in her lap it’s practically smiling. Children can be thoughtlessly cruel, so I assume that Julie was a nice kid to earn this kind of absolute trust from a cat.
I read and enjoyed a few short stories by this Czech writer as a teenager, but the one that had stuck with me the most is this humorous and delightful story written from a feline point of view. I love the glimpses of genuine affection behind the arrogance.
This beautifully framed, happy chonk was painted by a Chinese artist in the 18th century.
I’m sure this is how my cat would prefer me to feed him every day. I love the addition of the jealous little dog beneath the fluffy feline overlord.
The fat cat on the mat
may seem to dream
of nice mice that suffice
for him, or cream;
but he free, maybe,
walks in thought
unbowed, proud, where loud
roared and fought
his kin, lean and slim,
or deep in den
in the East feasted on beasts
and tender men.
The giant lion with iron
claw in paw,
and huge ruthless tooth
in gory jaw;
the pard dark-starred,
fleet upon feet,
that oft soft from aloft
leaps upon his meat
where woods loom in gloom –
far now they be,
fierce and free,
and tamed is he;
but fat cat on the mat
kept as a pet
he does not forget.
Louis Wain (1860 – 1939) was an English artist famous for the thousands of sketches and paintings of cats displaying human behaviour. They enchanted the Victorians who were more likely to see cats as a mildly irritating tool of pest control. Some of his art is too saccharine and cutesy for my liking, but I love this painting in which a feline bachelor party is clearly approaching an advanced stage of debauchery. I bet there’s catnip in those cigars!
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