The Bridge, Part Two (Module 5)

During the past few weeks, each reading has had an element that piqued my interest for further research.  Alas, this week I found difficulty getting interested in any of the topics covered.  As a result, I decided to dive into a bit of a silly topic.  In today's society, we are inundated with internet memes, particularly of the cat.  Don't worry, I'm not going to fill this blog with pictures of "grumpy cat" or "ceiling cat," but I thought a discussion of contemporary cat art might be interesting.  However, my initial research led me to an artist that is not be considered contemporary, but whose works were created a few decades after the art nouveau movement. The discussion of Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen's "mania for cats" (Meggs & Purvis, 2012, p. 211) was the inspiration.  In the end I decided to settle for a comparison of the cat works of Steinlen and Balthus (birth name: Balthasar Klossowski).

It seems the most iconic of Steinlen's cat works, are the various incarnations of Chat Noir.

Chat Noir/Ce Soir, 1896 (artnet)

However, Steinlen's cat images were not limited to poster illustrations.  He work also included from simple sketching to detailed drawings.  Furthermore, he produced cats in multiple medias, as he created sculptures of cats as well.

Sketches: Playful Cats (Steinlen)

Detailed Drawings: Seated Siamese (Steinlen)

Sculpture: Cat #1 (Steinlen)

When I firs aimed began to research contemporary cat artists, I feared it would be difficult to narrow that subject sufficiently for a blog.  However, I soon realized that Balthus one artist was prevalent in the 20th century.  In fact, his prominence is best exemplified by a self portrait titled, The King of Cats.  Throughout my research of his work, I could not find any pieces related to cats that did not contain humans.  Below is a sampling of his work:

The King of Cats, 1935 (anothermag)

The Drawing Room II, 1942 (anothermag)

The Quays, 1929 (anothermag)

Thérèse Dreaming, 1938 (anothermag)

The works of these two artist would never be confused, although they each demonstrated such a strong interest in cats, their approaches were distinctive.  The most notable contrast was the composition of these images.  Steinlen made the cat the central aspect of each image and work of art.  However, Balthus made the cat almost a sidekick character.  In fact, many of Balthus's creations show the humans practically ignoring the presence of the cat(s).  Upon further research, I was able to locate some works by Steinlen that contain humans with cats.  However, these are fundamentally different Balthus's works, as the humans are always attending to the cats in Steinlen's works.

Lait Pur Sterilise (artrepublic) 

The contrasts between these artists do not end with the composition of space, but also the types of drawings.  Balthus demonstrates a sense of realism with the use of various tones to indicate shadow.  Even the simplistic The Quays includes a treatment of the shadows.  Steinlen's style varies, with some images employing shading for depth and texture.  However, other works of Steinlen (Lait Pur Sterilise and Chat Noir) are consistent with the art nouveau movement, where contour lines are used to demonstrate shape and depth with flat blocks of color (Meggs & Purvis, 2012).

These artists also differed in the public's reception of their cat works. Steinlen's cat works resulted in multiple commissions, and were even called "remarkably tender" by contemporary writes Meggs and Purvis (2012).  In contrast, Balthus's cat works were criticized for the nature in which they depicted female children.  Contemporary writer Farago (2013) refers to Balthus's pictures as "erotic images of children," and implies that Balthus had to fight accusations of pedophilia during his lifetime.

Both Balthus and Steinlen drew their inspirations, at least initially, from real life.  Balthus's interest in cats appeared to come from the early experience of a losing a stray he had befriended.  Steinlen, in contrast, used his own cats as his inspiration.  At just age eleven, he put together a forty image series dedicated to his lost cat, Mitsou (Farago, 2013).  Throughout his career, Steinlen used his own cats as muses for depicting cats in his works (Weyman, 2010).

Drawing depicting Balthus's sadness over the loss of his cat, Mitsou Series, 1919 (Farago, 2013)

As for contemporary cat muses, well I promised this would not be a blog filled with Grumpy Cat.  However, considering I accidentally wrote the bulk of this blog on the supposed National Cat Day, I figured I'd include just one.

Tardar Sauce (Mahdawi, 2013)

Works Cited

Bruder, G. (1896). Chat Noir/Ce Soir. Retrieved from http://www.artnet.com/artists/theophile alexandre-steinlen/

Farago, J. (2013, October 21). Bizarre Balthus show reveals artist's fixation with cats and young girls. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/21/balthus-cats-girls-paintings-provocations-metropolitan-review

Gallery Administrator. (2008). Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923). Retrieved from http://www.steinlen.net/main.php

Mahdawi, A. (2013, October 29). It's National Cat Day … every day. The Guardian. Retrieved from
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/29/national-cat-day-internet-devotion

Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2012). Meggs' History of Graphic Design (5th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Pellerin, A. (2013, October 8). Balthus and Cats. Another. Retrieved from
http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/3088/Balthus_and_Cats

Steinlen, T. (n.d.). Lait Pur Sterilise. Retrieved from www.artrepublic.com/

Weyman, T. (Appraiser). (2010, January 4). 1909 Theophile Steinlen "Summer Cat" Color Lithograph [Raleigh #1401]. The Antiques Roadshow. Video transcript retrieved from http://http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200902A20.html