- “Gato Barraña Galicia 2” by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga Commons)(Lmbuga Galipedia)
- So 19th-century.
Here’s something fascinating: A slew of cat paintings go up for bidding at the auction house Bonhams this week, and Vulture’s got a theory that it may provide insight into our current fixation with internet cats—it may actually be the reemergence of a 19th-century trend. The piece compares 19th-century painting to the internet, as a way to obtain images and information. And it turns out that people who bought paintings during that time were really into paintings of cats.
I don’t find any of this particularly surprising. Like arguments that Instagram has killed photography, I find arguments that the internet has made art facile and cutesy unconvincing. For every Wes Anderson-inspired print, there’s someone like Gabby Bess, creating weird, very good, interdisciplinary post-net art.
And anyway, nope, we were already into that shit—to the extent that artists specialized in cat paintings; one of them, Henriette Ronner-Knip, has work up for auction:
Born in Amsterdam in 1821, Ronner-Knip began studying under her father, the topographical painter Joseph August Knip, at the age of 11. She sold her first painting at 15 and held a debut exhibition at 16. Ronner-Knip’s signature is her bravura brushwork, presaging Impressionism. On the Watch, one of a pair of Ronner-Knip’s paintings at Bonhams, depicts two cats resting together on a pink blanket. The painting dissolves into near abstraction as the animals’ fluffy fur meets the soft pastel background. It’s the Philip Guston of kitten canvases.
That’s just one of many delightful details imparted. You can read the whole thing here. It’ll make your day better.