Sunday, December 2, 2012

Cats in Art: Puss in Boots (2 of 2)--Dore

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.
 
Last week's post featured another illustration from this series.
 

[Image credit Wikimedia Commons.]

Illustrations for Puss in Boots, 1883 edition, Gustave Dore, held in a private collection.

The engraver Gustave Dore provided the illustrations for Charles Perrault's 17th century swashbuckling cat story. Zuffi tells us:

Naturally, Perrault's tale has tickled the fancy of many illustrators: even the great Gustave Dore, tireless creator of images to accompany tests such as the Bible or the Divine Comedy, could not resist the fascination of one of the world's most famous cats.

In the image above I surmise that the cat is making some point that would seem not to be sitting well with the phlegmatic, corpulent boss.  I use "boss" for lack of a better word--he may be king, or ruler, or owner--but you get the idea.  Regardless of his station in life, the boss is about to traffic with a cat.  And he will certainly come off second best.

See, the cat is undaunted by the human's "power" and will do whatever the hell he wants to anyway, just like any self-respecting cat would do.



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