Cats playing a quiet game of cards, cats at the ballet, cats having a leisurely luncheon on the grass, cats dancing in the boisterous French style or boating on the river. Here are the quintessential Impressionist cats - painted with vivid, joyous colours in their favourite haunts, at their ease in various ordinary activities.
With their pensive, brooding expressions, cats lend themselves perfectly to incorporation in the great works of the Impressionist master, whether strolling among Monet's wild poppies, sitting in Mary Cassatt's loge at the opera, or even enjoying a Sunday dance at Renoir's Bougival. They can be charming or steeped in mute despair, vulgar or lovingly maternal, bourgeois or intellectual - but they are always Impressionist cats, caught as if by the camera, spontaneous and unprepared.
Susan Herbert has already shown a unique ability to paint cats in unusual and unexpected guises. Here she presents them brilliantly in the much loved context of Impressionism, a wondrously beguiling sight.
You couldn't fault these Impressionist cats if the Impressionist masters themselves had painted them. Susan Herbert not only captures situations that those French Impressionists created but she captures the cats just as though they are living that moment, brooding, happy, carefree, windswept and all the rest. The paintings are brilliant fully deserve to be in a gallery of their own.
Cats certainly seem to lend themselves to being portrayed in Impressionistic setting, be they at the ballet, dining on the grass by the Seine, broodingly sitting on a chair, posing in Tahiti, wandering among the poppies, the Fifer playing the flute or at the salon in the rue des Moulins.
The ginger cat on his self portrait certainly could be mistaken for Vincent (even though he has two ears1), the pair at Mary Cassatt's loge at the opera captures admirably the bond between the two of them, perhaps mother and daughter, while the cat in a green dress matches the original artist's brooding look.
As the blurb for the book says, Susan Herbert, qualifying as an Impressionist herself, 'presents them brilliantly in the much-loved context of Impressionism, a wonderfully beguiling sight'. And, indeed, these paintings are exactly that.
Just a neat little collection of art works of cats dressed as people. Cute. :D makes a nice coffee table book or a nice present for an animal & art lover.
My daughters and I loved this book. We looked up each original art piece and compared it to the ones in the book. Each page was a delight and we turned it into a learning experience. A win win.