cross-posted from: https://lemmynsfw.com/post/6793318
Cat Watching a Spider, 1892 - Ōide Tōkō (1841 - 1905)
I love the contrast between works like this, with its brilliant attention to detail and anatomy, and “Frog Meditating,” by Sengai, who is just a herpy derp little Buddhist froggy guy.
He was just following Picasso’s process:
That kitty is watching the FUCK out of that spider
Cute scarf, matches the eyes
All the little anatomical details on the cat make this great. The Henry’s pocket, the scrunched up nose, the retracted claws correctly being shown as a ‘split’ in the front of the paw… it’s just so cool to see artists from 100+ years ago seeing and portraying this without the sort of simplified visual language we grew up with in cartoons, books, etc for what a cat looks like.
Then by contrast you have paintings from Europe, from the same period, where the artist has clearly never seen a cat.
This somehow makes me feel like all is right in the world.
I like this kind of minimalistic art. Many believe art needs to be deeply profound and inspiring via complexity and detail. However art like this brings me such a pure, simple joy. It’s okay just to observe, enjoy and be content with the simplest things.
Spider:
-He is behind me, isn’t he?
My mom has a print of this. It’s been hanging in her house since I was a kid.
