I have another entry for Elle from Empire of the Cat, our host this month at Art Journal Journey. Her theme is Books, Cats, and Tea. I am once again focusing on cats, because I have created this in my Cats altered book.
I have been working on this for five days and I only have it half finished. This is Cats in Art and because I have eight more, this is part 1. Don't worry. I will show each individually. But first, look at all those cats and human faces. That means I will also be joining Nicole and her Friday Face Off later tonight.
This is a painting by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, best known as a philosopher, specifically a political philosopher. He is lesser known for his paintings.
This is a famous poster created by Theophile Steinlen, a French artist well known for his cat paintings, sculptures, and posters.
This is another Steinlen poster, this time with a cat, a mother, and a daughter enjoying hot chocolate. We could always pretend it is tea, which goes nicely with Elle's theme.
This painting of a girl with her kitten by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau was created with pastels. He was famous for his portraits.
Even if you haven't heard of several of the previous artists, I suspect you are quite familiar with Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Although he was a leading member of the original Impressionists, by the 1880s, he started creating more realistic paintings, especially portraits.
This painting is by Charles Camoin, who was a French expressionist painter. He was influenced by many artists, but Renoir had a great deal of influence on his art.
If you live in the states, you have probably heard of Currier & Ives, a New York based firm whose lithographs were among the most popular wall hangings in the 19th century.
This poster was created for Harper's monthly magazine by Edward Penfield, who used many cats in his poster art. Penfield was an illustrator and was considered the father of the American poster. Penfield was hired at Harper's even before he finished his art studies. He became their primary illustrator and head of Harper's art department until Harper's declared bankruptcy in 1899.
I did a great deal of measuring and cutting, keeping the stickers in the center of each piece. Imagine my horror when I started putting the images on the two page spread and they were too large. All that work for naught. Although they overlap, I found a way to fit them all on this spread.
Bleubeard and I
are delighted you joined us today and hope to see you at Art Journal Journey as you share your own interpretation of Books, Cats, and Tea. We also hope to see you at