by L A Vocelle
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.
The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr is an autobiography of a cat written (1819-1821) by the German writer and composer, E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). The story is about the very literate and precocious Tomcat Murr who decides to write his own autobiography. He feels he should write it because as a cat, he has been relegated to an inferior existence to humans, but in his own cat way, he doesn’t care.
Of course Tomcat Murr believes himself superior to humans because he is feline. Murr is a well-read cat and looks down upon those who are not as educated as himself. Murr writes his autobiography on scraps of paper that he has found, which are the ripped apart fragments of the composer Johannes Kreisler’s manuscript. Because of this, Murr intersperses his story with pieces of Kreisler’s story and the two are merged. The two versions alternate side by side in a double narrative: the story of the intelligent confident lover and sometimes thug, Tomcat Murr, and the genius, albeit moody, hypochondriac Kreisler.
The Russian nobleman Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), later known as the founder of modern Russian literature, was rather hot headed and prideful. Fighting in over 29 duels, in his last, provoked by an insult to his wife’s honor, he died at the very young age of 37.
In Pushkin’s epic fairy tale poem, Ruslan and Ludmila (1820) he mentions the cat a couple of times.
“A learned cat whiles away the hours
By walking slowly round and round.
To right he walks, and sings a ditty;
To left he walks, and tells a tale—”
A princess pines away in prison,
And a wolf serves her without treason;
A mortar, with a witch in it,
Walks as if having somewhat feet;
There’s King Kashchey, o’er his gold withered;
There’s Russian odour… Russian spirit!
And I there sat: I drank sweet mead,
Saw, near the sea, the green oak, growing,
Under it heard a cat, much-knowing,
Talking me its long stories’ set.
Having recalled one of its stories,
I’ll recite it to the world, glorious…”
Demon cat stories persisted in 19th century Japan, and the story The Cat Witch of Okabe was reenacted on stage. In order to terrify the young virgins at the local temple, the witch-cat disguised herself as an old woman. In Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s depiction of a kabuki performance of about 1835, an evil woman with large cat ears and paws kneels in the center, with a huge, glaring cat, her protector, crouching behind her while two samurai on each side attempt to kill her (figure 8.26).
Next to each of the samurai is a cat with a cloth wrapped around its head dancing on its hind legs. The cloth on the cat’s head represents the folk belief that a cat would steal a napkin to wear on its head and dance with other cats and howl at the top of their voices, “Neko ja! We are the cats!” This would be done in a temple hall or a place which was supposed to remain quiet (Rogers, 2006, p. 57).
Figure 8.26. Okabe The Cat Witch, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, c. 1844
Another Japanese story of menacing cat witches occurs when a samurai witnesses cats performing a crazed, violent dance when he enters a temple for the night. Instead of yelling “Neko ja!” the cats were screaming “Tell it not to Shippeitaro”. The next day the samurai learned from the nearby villagers that once a year the cats forced them to imprison their most beautiful maiden in a cage and demanded that she be taken to the temple for sacrifice. The samurai then asked who or what Shippeitaro was. The villagers told him Shippeitaro was a courageous dog who belonged to the village’s chief. The samurai decided he wanted to help the villagers, so he took the dog, and put him in the cage instead of the girl and he carried it to the temple. The ghost cats appeared at midnight with their leader, an extremely large and vicious tomcat. Growling with expectation, the tomcat jumped on to the cage and opened the door only to find Shippeitaro waiting for him. Shippeitaro grabbed the great tom, and the samurai killed the surprised cat with his sword. The courageous dog then killed the rest of the cats and the village was freed from the curse.
The Boy Who Drew Cats, another Japanese fairy tale, published in 1898, revolves around a small, weak farmer’s boy who was unable to perform his chores. Instead, he occupied himself by drawing cats. Because the boy was generally useless around the farm, they sent him to a temple to become a monk. This did not stop him from drawing cats. Exasperated with the boy, the older monk told him he could not be a monk at that temple and sent him away to a larger one. But the temple the monk had sent him to had been abandoned because of a large goblin-rat. Monks and warriors that had tried to fight the ferocious rat were eventually chased away by its strength and never seen again. When the boy arrived at the temple, a light was burning, so he went in. Inside he saw huge white screens, and he painted cats on them. Exhausted, he fell asleep in a small cabinet. During the night he heard fighting sounds, and in the morning he awoke to find the goblin-rat dead. All the cats he had painted had mouths wet with red blood. When the monks found out that his painted cats had slain the goblin-rat, he was hailed a hero and was allowed to become a famous cat artist.
Figure 8.27. Cat Dealer in Qing Dynasty China, 1843, George Newenham from ‘China a Series of Views’
The cat in 19th century China was not found so much in fairy tales, but instead as a delicacy to be enjoyed eaten. Cat merchants thrived on selling domestic cats caught in the streets of the towns. Some wildcats of Tartary were caught and consumed as well (figure 8.27). The man in the drawing seems to be stroking a cat, but this is surely to see how much meat is on the poor animal’s bones. The selling and eating of cat has not abated and around four million cats per year are brutally killed and consumed in China today.
The cat, a symbol of cleanliness, domesticity and independence became a welcome addition to bourgeoisie households. Captured in hundreds of anthropomorphized poses by several of the century’s top photographers, the cat was afforded the opportunity to mingle even more intimately with its human providers. Now it was not just an animal, it was a member of the family, a child to be doted on. In addition, the cat established itself in the hearts of the artists and writers of the era who successfully publicized this bond by including it in paintings, stories, and poems. The cat had become the quintessential pet.
CHAPTER NINE
THE CAT IN THE 20TH CENTURY
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the cat had risen in popularity at a phenomenal rate. Now even less stigmatized by the evil mantra it had carried throughout history, as the 20th century proceeded, the cat would become even more ubiquitous. Its breakthrough into the literary and art world, which had started centuries ago, opened new doors, providing the cat with a continued spot as symbol and celebrity in the century’s greatest works. From canvas, to TV and films, music, advertising, books, and even war, cats would continue to be the mascots of those independent thinkers who would make world history. Cat welfare organizations begun in the 19th century would flourish in the 20th , and expose incidents of animal cruelty like they had never done before. New laws and a sympathetic legal system would punish such abusers. The anthropomorphic photographs begun in the 19th century had allowed the cat to become not just a pet, but a true member of the family, an individual of its own merit to be cherished and looked after as if it were a child. The first cat shows in the 19th century paved the way for even more interest in cat breeds in the 20th, and The Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA), founded in 1906, now maintains the world’s largest registry of pedigreed cats. In the wars of the 20th century, soldiers facing the grim reality of mankind’s propensity for self-destruction found solace in the untainted and unconditional love of a kitten or cat. Cats kept men company in the damp and muddy trenches of WWI and became heroes in their own right in WWII. Plowing the seas as ships’ mascots, just as they had been ordained to do thousands of years ago by their association with the Goddess I
sis Pharia, courageous felines were decorated for their bravery and exemplary service. Much like the Romans who often carved images of cats into the bows of their ships, up until 1975, the British required their ships to carry black cats on board as good luck charms. Likewise, it was a bad omen if a cat abandoned a ship. During the Titanic’s sea trials in 1912, it is said that a cat with young kittens was aboard, but when the ship arrived in Southampton from Belfast, the cat quickly ran up and down the gangplank removing her kittens one at a time from the ship.
CATS IN THE AIR
Cats accompanied man not only on ships but also in the air, and shared in the glory of setting new records in flight and in space. Kiddo, a stray hangar cat, was the first feline to attempt to cross the Atlantic in 1910. Taken aboard the dirigible America at Atlantic City, New Jersey, Kiddo was meant to serve as a good luck charm to enable the flight to achieve its goal of crossing the Atlantic to Europe. The airship America was the first aircraft to have radio equipment on board, and the chief navigator, F. Murray Simon, only twenty minutes into the flight noted in his log, “I am chiefly worried by our cat, which is rushing around the airship like a squirrel in a cage.” Jack Irwin, the radio operator, complained that the cat was “raising hell” and “driving him mad” and suggested that perhaps they should leave it behind before they traveled too far. Simon disagreed, arguing, “We must keep the cat at all costs; we can never have luck without a cat aboard.” Even so, the crew took a vote and decided to try to get rid of the unhappy feline by lowering it in a bag into a motorboat from the air, but the sea was too rough, and they ended up having to haul the now terribly disgruntled cat on board the airship again. In what was probably the first air-to-ground radio transmission, the upset chief engineer, Melvin Vaniman, sent a wireless message to the plane’s owner back at base reading, “Roy, come and get this goddamn cat!” (figure 9.1). Even though the America did not successfully cross the Atlantic, and the crew and cat had to abandon ship, the airship set other records such as the first air-to-ground transmission, time aloft and total distance traveled by air. The crew and the cat became celebrities. Kiddo, renamed Trent after the ship that rescued them, was proclaimed the mascot of the America. Kiddo even had a short stint at Gimbel’s department store in New York City, where the recalcitrant grey tabby was displayed in a gilded cage filled with fluffy pillows on which he could lounge. Soon after, he retired from public view and spent the rest of his life with Edith, the daughter of Walter Wellman (1858-1934), the owner of the airship.
Figure 9.1. M. Vaniman and Kiddo, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
Also in 1910, Captain Kitty, known as John Bevins Moisant, almost never flew without his tabby cat, Mademoiselle Fifi. Moisant was a showman and performed aerial maneuvers and also raced. Fifi accompanied him on at least 14 of his flights as well as his famous flight across the English Channel on August 23, 1910. To accommodate the illustrious feline, Moisant covered the seats with tape so that she would not scratch them and also secured her litter box to the floor on the passenger’s seat side (figure 9.2). A daring aviator, Moisant pre-deceased Fifi in an air crash, in which lucky Fifi did not accompany him (figure 9.3).
Another airborne tabby was the kitten, Whoopsy, later known as Jazz who became the first cat to successfully cross the Atlantic from Britain to America. Smuggled on board by a stowaway, the kitten was a pleasant diversion for the crew and was soon announced to be the mascot of the airship until it crashed in 1921. Luckily, Whoopsy did not sustain any life threatening injuries.
Figure 9.2. Mlle Fifi first cat to make flight across the English Channel and John Moisant, c. 1911, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
Figure 9.3. Moissant’s Cat Fifi in Mourning, Bain News Service, 1900, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
Even though Charles Lindbergh was not accompanied by a cat on his famous trans-Atlantic flight in 1927, he did own Patsy who was his faithful pal during many of his other flights. When asked why he did not let Patsy come along on the transatlantic flight, he said, “It's too dangerous a journey to risk the cat's life.” A Spanish set of
postage stamps featuring famous aviators of the period and dating to 1930 are the first to show a domestic cat. The one peseta stamp pictures Charles Lindbergh and The Spirit of St. Louis taking off as Patsy, Lindbergh’s black kitten, looks on in the right hand lower corner (figure 9.4).
Figure 9.4. Charles Lindbergh with Patsy the Cat on Stamp
Figure 9.5. Felicette on Stamp
Félicette, a lowly Parisian street cat, became the first cat sent into space on the 18th October 1963. The French feline survived the 15-minute flight which propelled her some 100 miles into space, only to be put to sleep two to three months after the voyage so that scientists could examine the electrodes they had implanted into her brain. Félicette, a martyr to space flight, was duly thanked by being commemorated for her brave service on several postage stamps (figure 9.5).
CATS IN ART
When not participating in dangerous flights and setting new records, the cat, just as it had done in previous centuries, played an integral part in art and photography. Enduring as a cultural and social icon, the cat symbolized femininity, sensuality, domesticity, lust, and evil. Artists such as Picasso, Félix Vallotton, Balthus, Leonor Fini, and many more used the cat’s symbolic worth to great effect. However, the cat, not exclusive to Western art, could be found in Japanese and Chinese scrolls, paintings and porcelain works as well.
One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Picasso was known to have loved cats and was photographed with kittens or cats throughout his lifetime. He also gave tribute to their symbolic importance in his many paintings. In one of his earliest works ascribed to his Blue Period, both figures in Woman and Cat seem to be inextricably united. Crazy cat ladies, already well documented, were not forgotten by Picasso who painted Crazy Lady (Woman) with Cat. However, from 1935 – 1945, the war years, Picasso produced many paintings with cats that focused on the dark side of feline nature as a reflection of man’s own savagery. During those years, instead of fleeing France during the German occupation, Picasso stayed in Paris and continued to paint. Many of Picasso’s works expressed symbolic references to the political situations of the time. Cat Seizing a Bird, April 1939, depicts a self–satisfied cat triumphantly gripping a defenseless bird, its flesh torn to reveal a gaping wound. Here the cat represents the Fascist General Franco defeating Madrid the preceding March. In 1941, while living with his mistress Dora Maar, he painted Dora Maar au chat, now one of the world’s most expensive paintings, sold in 2006 for over 95 million dollars. The painting shows Picasso’s mistress seated with a small black cat (kitten) behind her shoulder, seemingly balancing on the chair back. Picasso uses the cat and all its symbolism to express Dora Maar’s predatory cat-likeness. Maar’s long fingers and sharpened nails remind one of the savageness of feline claws. Dora Maar was a pivotal force in Picasso’s life, perhaps the only mistress that was his intellectual equal, and he likened her to an “Afghan cat”.
In the 1960s, Picasso painted his wife Jacqueline Roque with cats as well. In one painting, Jacqueline sits with a small black cat on her lap. The cat’s eyes are so round and large that they reflect an innocence and beauty that matches Jacqueline’s. Picasso perhaps hints that even though she is a cat, she is a kind one. Jacqueline’s hands are placed on the arms of the chair just as Dora Maar’s are. However, her hands, short, stubby and almost mannish are much different from Maar’s; they are not predatory.
In addition to his portraits, Picasso did a series of paintings of cats and lobsters and cats on the beach. Lobster and Cat (1965) could just be a humorous study of a cat surprised by a lobster, but it could also symbolize the conflict of the time, the Cuban missile crisis.
Greatly influenced by Holbein, Dürer and Ingres, and later by Japanese print art, the Swiss painter Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) produced both woodcut
s and paintings in which he sometimes included cats. His woodcuts consist of a black background with only a few white lines to outline his images. In a series of six woodcuts called Instruments de musique, one of the woodcuts features a cat standing on a chest of drawers with its tail up next to a solitary man playing a flute. The cat playfully seeks attention and brings lightness to the composition. In another black and white woodcut, La Paresse (Laziness), dated 1896, a nude woman lies across a patterned bedspread and reaches for a white cat. Both woman and cat connect fluidly as one in their whiteness, the color invoking the idea of purity, hinting of an emotionless sensuality (figure 9.6). Painted in the same year, Women with Cats is almost reminiscent of Paul Gauguin’s composition of Tahitian women seated on the floor. Here the cat is indisputably a symbol of fertility (figure 9.7). Vallotton cannot be categorized as either an impressionist or a post-impressionist. Part of the Les Nabi group of Parisian painters, he was mainly interested in depicting a specific moment in time using color, space and abstraction. Vallotton’s work is very different from his friends Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard who also included cats in their works.
Figure 9.6. Laziness (La Paresse), Félix Vallotton, Woodcut,1896, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Even though they too were part of the Les Nabis, their works are not quite as abstract as Vallotton’s.
Born in Paris, Balthasar Klossowski (1908-2001), later known as Balthus, grew up in a family of painters and intellectuals. When he was eight years old, his mother painted him with the family cat. Thus began his long relationship with cats and art. Three years later, at just age eleven, he produced a book entitled Mitsou with 40 pen and ink drawings illustrating the story of a young boy who rescues a stray cat. As part of the story, we see Mitsou giving Balthus a dead mouse and the two playing under a table. Then, in the final scene, we see Balthus hunting for the missing cat and crying inconsolably.
