Studio: international art (2.1894)

Pictures and Studies of Cats at the Dutch Gallery

who are acquainted with the work of Burbank, the mouse to give point to the cruelty which is some-
English painter of cats, Gottfried Mind, called the times alleged against poor puss.
Raphael of cats, Hokusai, the Japanese genius, the It is the cat sacred to the house that the artist
Dutch artist Cornelius Wisscher, Delacroix, whose has occupied himself with—the house and the
sketch-books were full of studies of cats, and house garden—and his pictures, The Garden of

J. J. Grandville, will Cats and The White Moth, will be recognised as
A understand how com- important compositions remarkable for truth of
«L, pletely Mr. Tomson's action, vigour of movement, fine tone and colour
./r \ work justifies the posi- and feeling of open air. A picture of a cat just
-4l \ tion it takes amongst about to catch an orange-winged butterfly amongst
J the work of these the larkspurs and convolvulus, another, Chasing a
artists. The study of Bluebottle— cats jumping against a window-pane, a
\ his pictures at the splendid study of action—and yet another, The
i Dutch Gallery will Beetle Hunt—three little kittens after a beetle—are
I reveal close acquaint- all that can be taken to illustrate the hunting
ance with the cat instincts of the domestic cat. There is one subject
nature, and a know- —Phantasy—a difficult piece of drawing success-
ledge, to attain which fully accomplished—that has an almost fiendish
was necessary, not suggestion about it and calls to mind the asso-
only continual obser- ciation of the cat with mystery and magic and

witchcraft, and the weird
feeling which Edgar Allan
Poe has used so wonder-
fully in his story of The
Black Cat. The rest of
the subjects in this inter-
esting exhibition illustrate
in various ways the habits

vation, but a love of the cat M \ and manners of the cat in

and pleasure in its ways. This * its intimate association

alone could develop a sensi-
tiveness to appreciate its se-
date dignity, and the fantastic
hilarity which has made it
the delight and admiration of
many great men—historically
of Mahomet, Richelieu, Car-
dinal Wolsey, Lord Chester-
field, President Lincoln, Bau-

' ' FROM A SKETCH BY ARTHUR

delaire, andTheophile Gautier.

It will be found from the earliest records (about with our every-day life,

1668 B.C.) that the cat, amongst the Egyptians, and that they are not

not only had place as a sacred animal, but, like the without a touch of

modern dog, took some position as a sporting humour will be seen in

FROM A SKETCH BY ARTHUR TOMSON'

FROM A SKETCH BY ARTHUR
TOMSON

animal. It is, however, probable that there were The First Arrivals.

specific differences between the Egyptian species These pictures prove

and the gentle purring creature that rubs itself Mr- Tomson to be pos-

against our legs and has to-day come to be almost sessed of admirable tech-

a type of domesticity. nical abilities. There is

However this may be, it is neither its hieratic a largeness in his way of seeing things, an almost

aspect nor its sporting and retrieving powers that heroic note in the way he interprets the sculp-

have given character to Mr. Tomson's subjects, turesque lines of the beast under the soft thick fur,

I did not notice amongst them a rat nor even a that reminds one of the work of Barye". F. B.
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