Why Cats Paint

This book was an impulse purchase at last Sunday's Palo Alto library book sale. A quick read (only 96 pages). I found it fascinating. To avoid anybody else wanting to kill me (sorry Mathrick - I've added a warning now to my previous post), I need to tell you that there are spoilers ahead, and if this is a concern, go and read something else (OpenSolaris posts would be my top suggestion).

The book is broken down into the following sections:

• An historical perspective on cat painting, showing that this activity has been known about since Egyptian times. Lots of excellent photos of cat artist works from various periods in history..
• A section going into great detail on why cats paint. It offers theories for this behaviour and gives data to back them up. It describes the theory of invertism, where the cat will represent their art in an inverted manner.
• A retrospective of twelve major artists. Each artist has a defined style. One in particular is famous for his pieces that have been crafted whilst under the influence of drugs.
• A chapter on other forms of artistic expression - mainly works involving sculpturing with upholstered furniture.
• Finally a good selected bibliography.

And it's all a complete hoax. A wonderful spoof.

Usually it takes me a chapter or two to realize that perhaps they aren't being serious, but for a change I picked up on it before I'd even finished reading the foreword. But it's hilarious. Put a copy of this book on your coffee table and people will pick it up and start discussing it. See how long it takes them to realize that they're being had.

The theories chapter I found particularly enjoyable. It reminded me of all of those speakers and writers that prattle on with numerous unending polysyllabic utterances where a quick short word would have sufficed.

Same with the artists chapter. I had flashbacks to those art gallery show opening nights. Imagine a couple of societies best, dressed up to the nines, weighed down by all their jewelry, sipping gracefully from their champagne glasses, looking at one of the abstract paintings on the wall and saying something like

"the first thing you notice about the work is its bold regularity, its obvious symmetry. Not until later do we see the sheep walking. But once we do, the feeling of movement is powerful and immediate. We are able to peer through the confusion of moving limbs from a variety of revealing perspectives as it strides forward".

The artist, who is standing a few feet away and hears all this rolls his eyes, knowing full well that the painting was a result of him tripping over a step on a recent drunken binge, and bringing down a load of paint cans onto a canvas which had just been lying on the floor.

This book takes the same approach for cats painting. The authors must have had a wonderful time writing this. I'd love to know how they staged the photos.

If you are a cat lover, you will get a great chuckle over this book.

Also check out some of the online resources:

• Museum of Non Primate Art
• The Freddie Street Cats

And finally there's Why Paint Cats by the same authors. The email replies are great. Some people just take life way too seriously.

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( Jun 15 2005, 08:27:46 AM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [1]