It’s fair to say we’re major cat enthusiasts. That’s why Alix Paré’s fabulous tome Cats in Art (2020, original French publication) was something we just had to buy. It comes in a fluffy back cover, almost as if you’re petting a cat whilst holding the thing.

There are 19 images here encompassing a timeframe from antiquity right up to the modern day. Alongside each image there’s a brief account behind eat cat painting, from the iconic Le Chat Noir through to obscure numbers we’d never seen before.

It’s a feline fine art book right here, one packed with artistic history that showcases humanities longstanding love affair with these enigmatic beasts.

Cats in Art: From Prehistoric to Neo-Pop Masterpieces

“In Europe, from antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages, the cat is almost absent from works of art. This half-domestic, half-wild animal, which seems to have a strong link with the mysteries of nature, is mistrusted. The cat takes on all sorts of negative connotations: it is the animal of laziness, cruelty, gluttony, sensuality, and even lust. It is often associated with the Devil and witches. The cat’s presence in art progresses along with its acceptance by humankind. In the space of a few centuries, it goes from being a mere detail in the margin of a manuscript to becoming a veritable subject for painters.”

 There we have it. An opening section of this largely painting-driven work, but one acknowledging how cats were removed from much of art for generations.

We’ve covered in the likes of Jack Hartnell’s Medieval Bodies (2018) the prolific amounts of art from the time. But! Cats were somewhat lacking, only appearing occasionally and often painted in a weird way.

Once the level of pious fear and terror dropped, society became more welcoming to cats. From around the 18th century onward we can see them appearing in all manner of works, from Andy Warhol through to Pablo Picasso and Paul Gaugin.

Behold but a mere selection of what Cats in Art has to offer.

Our favourite from that lot has to be Le Chat Noir. You’ll have seen this around, no doubt, over the years. It was by Théophile Steinlen (1859-1923) who was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau specialist.

Wait for the horrors of horrors… HE WAS A SOCIALIST! Cripes, you can hear a certain sect of society recoil and don some stupid red caps in the process of that.

Anyway, Le Chat Noir was a Parisian entertainment establishment in Montmartre. It ran from 1881 to 1887 and was, yes, a cabaret. It was highly popular at its peal and its clever use of advertising artwork, with that dodgy looking black cat, looks so distinctly modern. As Paré puts it:

“Steinlen’s black cat is as much a figure of Paris as the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower. Before invading souvenir stores, it was the emblem of a famous Belle Époque cabaret …

[The cat] is associated with Parisian bohemian life in the 1900s. The ideal companion of penniless artists and solitary writers, it is like its masters: both integrated and on the fringes of society, urban, a night owl, and above all… mysterious.”

In modern times, thanks to the advent of the internet, we do think we’re in the most prolific era of cat art ever.

You can’t move online for either pictures or paintings of cats doing their thing. Or just entire video games on them, such as with the excellent neo-noir thing Stray (2022).

Yes, then, a great book. Cats in Art: From Prehistoric to Neo-Pop Masterpieces is a lovely time of it. Like cats? Yes. Like books? Yes. Like art? Yes! Well, here’s a merger of all three. Glorious.

A Little Bit About Alix Paré

There’s not a huge amount of information about Paré online. However, we do know she’s an art historian from the Louvre Museum and Palace of Versailles and she’s an expert across several centuries worth of artistic cat-based history.

Her other works focus on the gothic masterpieces of Gustave Doré.

Cats in Art launched in 2020 over in France, it just launched in English for the first time in September 2024 (from what we can tell from the online information). Thus, we feel blessed to have discovered this one!

You can find her on Instagram imparting her knowledge.

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In French, of course, a language we (sadly) don’t speak. Merde. However, due to the joys of online translation options you can now skip that bit and revel in the cat-based feedback excellence.