Browse new releases, best sellers or classics & find your next favourite book. Low prices on millions of books. Free UK delivery on eligible orders
Search results
Title: Photo: This Is the Color of My Dreams. Artist: Joan Miró (Spanish, Barcelona 1893–1983 Palma de Mallorca) Date: 1925. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 38 × 51 in. (96.5 × 129.5 cm) Classification: Paintings. Credit Line: The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, 2002. Accession Number: 2002.456.5.
- Indelible Miró
Resources for Research. The Met's Libraries and Research...
- Untitled in Derriere Le Miroir
Resources for Research. The Met's Libraries and Research...
- Indelible Miró
- Ancient Times to The Medieval Period
- Renaissance Period
- 18th Century
- 19th Century
- 20th Century
- Conclusion
1. Tomb of Nebamun
The ancient Egyptians didn’t have a canvas to paint their pictures. Instead, they painted on walls of tombs and palaces, and slabs of stone. Many cat paintings are dispersed throughout ancient Egypt since cats were worshiped as gods. One painting, in particular, is the hunting scene in the Tomb of Nebamun. This scene shows Nebamun hunting in the Nile marsh with a cat next to him, catching birds. The cat’s eye gives historians the idea that the cat had a deep religious meaning. The cat may rep...
2. Grinning Cat
The Grinning Cat in Conrad of Megenberg’s book, Buch der Natur (Book of Nature), is a portrait that people can’t look away from. The cat’s face is a grotesque human face with a disturbing smile instead of the regal cat face we all love. Conrad of Megenberg did this for a reason. In fact, many artists in this time portrayed cats this way. Cats symbolized pagan and Jewish traditions, which were represented in Catholic European paintings as demonic. If you look at other cat paintings of this tim...
3. A Barber’s Shop with Monkeys and Cats
A Barber’sShop with Monkeys and Cats, created by Flemish painter Abraham Teniers, realistically depicts monkeys serving cats at a barbershop. Teniers used oil on copper, a popular medium between the 16th and 17th centuries. The anthropomorphic painting looks almost modern and shows that not all paintings were serious. Usually, we would see humans in place of the animals, but its whimsical display of monkeys running a barbershop is proof that, even then, cats knew their place as masters.
4. The Black Cat
The Black Catis not dated, so it’s hard to say when this beautiful piece was created. Chinese artist Min Zhen was a seal carver who lived most of his life in Hubei. Most of his work included human figures. Min Zhen was associated with the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, a group of painters known for rejecting the typical rules of painting and opting for individual expression. Most famous paintings used oil on canvas, but this piece used ink on paper. It features a chubby cat smiling at you—very...
5. The Cat’s Lunch
Marguerite Gerard was one of the leading female artists of her time. Gerard liked to illustrate motherhood and female companionship in her paintings and included a pet dog or cat in many of them. Her brother-in-law, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, was also a painter and had cats in his portraits. He probably influenced her to involve cats in her paintings. The Cat’s Lunchfeatures a young woman holding out a plate of food and the cat clearly enjoying it while the dog eagerly waits for his bite.
6. Curiosity
Couldery was an English cabinet maker before abandoning the trade to focus on art. He’s well known as an artist who mainly focused on animals, specifically cats. He created portraits that captured realistic expressions of animals in mischievous situations. Admirers of his work are in awe at his ability to paint fur that looks so real you could touch it. Curiosityis one painting in a series that features cats in various scenarios, overpowered by their usual investigative behavior. This paintin...
7. Gabrielle Arnault as a Child
French painter Louis Leopold Boilly rose to fame during the turn of the 19th century for his ability to produce fantastic portraits. At first glance, this painting doesn’t seem like much. It’s a young child holding a cat, and the colors are plain, but the innocence of the kitten and the child is almost tangible. Even the young girl’s eyes seem to draw you in. Ultimately, this painting is about youth. Of course, as cat lovers, we notice the cat. It’s almost cruel that the cat isn’t looking at...
16. Sara Holding A Cat
Sara HoldingA Catis an impressionist painting by Mary Cassatt, a famous female American artist. Cassatt often featured women and children in her paintings, showing life’s more gentle, nurturing side using thick, blunt brush strokes. In this portrait, we see a young child named Sara holding her precious kitty. Unfortunately, this was one of Cassatt’s last pieces of work. She went completely blind by 1914 and had to give up painting entirely. Thankfully, she gave us cat lovers this artwork that...
17. The White Cat
The White Cat is a famous painting by German artist Franz Marc, also known as Tom Cat on a Yellow Pillow. In this painting, we see a sleepy white cat cozied up on a pillow, enjoying an afternoon nap. Franz Marc is well known for using mysticism to portray animals. Marc applied expressionism, using bold colors to set a mood for innocence, feminine joy, and life. At this time, artists used powerful colors and bold outlines, both of which are represented in this piece and many of his other paint...
18. The Bridge
Many of the paintings we’ve listed are oil on canvas. However, The Bridgeby Swedish painter Carl Olof Larsson is a watercolor painting featuring a young female painter observing a man on a bridge. Her cat sits next to her, equally intrigued. This is one of Larsson’s later works. Larsson often used muted palettes in his paintings and showcased his family life in his work. He’s best known as a watercolor painter, and his work took him far when reproduction printing used his watercolor paintings...
The great thing about this list? There are so many more cat paintings out there! It’s one more reason why cats believe they are superior to humans. We can’t stop uplifting them in our art, but that’s okay. Cats have a special place in this world, in our hearts, and on the canvas. See also: 1. 11 Most Famous Dog Paintings (with Pictures) 2. How To P...
- Cassidy Sutton
Mar 7, 2021 · A notable early example from the seventeenth century is Abraham Teniers’ Barber Shop with Monkeys and Cats, which is an oddly surreal creation for a seventeenth-century artwork, but shows how early artists became interested in anthropomorphising the cat. In the twentieth century, Picasso’s Cat Devouring a Bird is not one of his best-known ...
- Raphael, Jacob’s Dream, 1518. In the Renaissance, dreams were depicted in art strictly as a religious experience. Biblical stories in which people had dreamlike visions and encountered higher beings and divine revelations through dreams were popular topics for artists.
- Albrecht Dürer, Dream Vision, 1525. One of the first artists to actually paint a dream of their own as opposed to divine visions was Albrecht Dürer. His watercolour painting Dream Vision from 1525 was inspired by a dream he had on June 7, 1525.
- Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1797-1799. Francisco Goya did several series of etchings during his career. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is the 43 etching in his Los Caprichos series, which presented dark satires of eighteenth-century Spain.
- William Blake, Visionary Heads, 1818. The English poet and painter William Blake made a series of black chalk and pencil drawings starting in 1818 at the request of the artist and astrologer John Varley.
- “Woman with a Cat” by Pablo Picasso (1902) Watch this video on YouTube. Courtesy of YouTube. Pablo Picasso‘s “Woman with a Cat” (1902) is an iconic Cubist masterpiece, portraying a woman seated with a cat on her lap.
- “Cat and Bird” by Franz Marc (1912) Franz Marc’s “Cat and Bird” (1912) is a vibrant Expressionist masterpiece that captures the essence of the predator-prey relationship.
- “The Sleeping Cat” by Édouard Manet (1862) Watch this video on YouTube. Courtesy of YouTube. Édouard Manet’s“The Sleeping Cat” (1862) is a realist gem, delicately portraying the serene repose of a sleeping cat.
- “The Cat” by Henri Matisse (1910) Henri Matisse‘s “The Cat” (1910) is a Fauvist masterpiece that encapsulates the playful spirit of its feline subject.
Jan 24, 2020 · Metropolitan Cats. , 1983—A History of Cats at The Met. From ancient Chinese sculpture to the modern Broadway stage, cats have long been a source of inspiration for artists. As part of The Met’s 150th anniversary in 2020, the Museum began releasing films from the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive, which comprises over 1,500 films ...
People also ask
What are the most famous paintings of cats by famous artists?
Who painted a cat in 1939?
Who painted a white cat?
Who painted cat catching a bird?
Who painted the cat at play?
What is the history of cats in art?
Jan 25, 2023 · 2 Famous Cat Paintings. 2.1 Barber Shop with Monkeys and Cats (c. 1633 – 1667) by Abraham Teniers. 2.2 A White Cat Playing with a String (1863) by Utagawa Hiroshige II. 2.3 Girl Sleeping With A Cat (1881 – 1882) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. 2.4 Curiosity (1893) by Horatio Couldery.
