From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. Having moved on from Stefano Zuffi's marvelous work, The Cat in Art, I am now using some ideas from Caroline Bugler's equally impressive book, The Cat/3500 Years of the Cat in Art.
This'll be the fourth of several Alexandre-Francois Desportes paintings that will be featured here.
Image credit The Aetheneum, A Dog and a Cat Fighting in a Kitchen Interior, Alexandre-Francois Desportes, 1710, oil on canvas, no information on dimensions, held in a private collection.
And the disturbing kitty/dog close-up:
The dog is dead serious, and the cat is overmatched. One can only hope that the dog's slashing attack missed causing serious damage, and that the kitty managed to high-tail it out of there. And check out the close-up again: if there is such a thing as an artist painting an "Oh, shit!" facial expression on an animal, Desportes manages to do it right here.
However....did you notice the other kitties in the painting? I almost missed them since the viewer's eye iis drawn immediately to the big fight. There's a cat down in the lower left, another one immediately below the fight (looking strangely composed, despite all the action), and another just above the fight. Plus that might even be a fourth cat lurking to the right of the dangling goose.
[Gary note: With my Cats in Arts posts, I encourage you to scope out the art appreciation site Artsy (I have no financial interest in the site, I just like it), where you can explore many aspects of the world of art. You'll certainly be entertained and enlightened!]
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