We may send Christmas cards featuring cats, or grin at a seasonal cat video on YouTube. Looking at cute cats certainly is not a modern thing; indeed, we can take our cuteness detectors back to the 19th century and discover that our ancestors were just as obsessed with Christmas kitties.
Two popular animal artists from this time period stand out for their feline focus. Despite being contemporaries, their art could not have been more different.
Louis Wain:
Fantastic Feline Art on Many Levels
Born in London in 1860, Louis Wain is well known as the artist who has given so many people a unique visual insight into mental illness. A frequent hooky player, he hung around the docks where he would listen, wide-eyed, to the stories sailors told him of faraway places. Besides the sailors’ tales, both true and tall, young Wain enjoyed other fantasy stories, as well as art and music.
He went on to attend the London School of Art and soon gained notice sketching dogs at animal shows. However, after his marriage to Emily Richardson and their discovery of a rain-soaked kitten, abandoned near their home, he began putting more energy into cat art. The kitten, named Peter, was a close companion to Emily as she suffered and then died from breast cancer. Before her death, Emily urged Louis to publish his renderings of Peter and other cats. She barely lived to see his first publication of cat art, which was titled, “A Kitten’s Christmas Party.” Published in the 1886 Christmas issue of the Illustrated London News, Wain’s drawings portrayed cats doing mischievous human things at a holiday party. It brought Wain a fair amount of publicity and became a popular piece of work. Sadly, Emily lost her cancer battle the following month.
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Denne historien er fra December 2022-utgaven av Cat Talk.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Checklist For What to Look For in Your Club's Next Show Venue
Show Manager To Ring One, Please
Tonkinese
When You're Well and Truly Tonked
AVOIDING The Kitten Fear Period
Young kittens seem fearless.4 As soon as those eyes open and they can get their legs under them, they are off to see the world if their mama and humans let them.
No Milk For You!
Milk Issues and Kittens
Fostering Kittens
When asked if I would be interested in fostering a queen and her eight newborn kittens, I volunteered without question.
Do You present ? Polish! OR DO YOU
IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS!
No Kitten! Cats Are Part of the Military!
Felines have graced the decks of boats and ships back nearly to the beginning of time, roaming freely on passenger ships, war vessels, and merchant schooners, keeping vermin at bay.
Feline Summer Movie Fun!
School is almost OUT! Huzzah! But raindrops are plunking against the window, the amusement and water parks haven’t opened yet, camping is out, and roasted hot dogs and S’mores are another month away.
Kittens Are Special...
...and so are some of the show rules for them:
Genetic Pleiotropy and the Risks in Breeding Recessive Mutations
Nearly everyone loves what’s rare and unique. A slight defect in the minting process of a coin can create a demand and a value well beyond the face value of the coin. The coin is functionally no different than its perfectly minted counterpart, but its scarcity and uniqueness alone make it more desirable than the rest.
