Cats are like Cilantro
...and I love cilantro!
Andy Warhol, Sam
Warhol and his mother owned 25 cats, all named Sam except for one. Before Warhol had reached superstar status in the art world, he lived with his mother, Julia, in New York throughout the 1950s. In their apartment on East 57th Street in Manhattan, Warhol and his mother owned a lonely cat named Hester.
See
Cats have a bad rap. I wonder if dog lovers don’t like them since their canines don’t. At any rate, I have always loved cats. I love their independence. I love the way their love for you is a loyal choice, I love the way they move and the way they model relaxing and self-care. There is something very calming about spending time with a purring kitty that lowers my stress levels and soothes me when I’m sick.
Artists of all kinds recognize the beauty of cats and their personalities, and many keep them as creative companions. As Alison Nastasi writes, “Artists are drawn to cats as pets based on a mutual respect and an inherent understanding of their complexities, independent nature, and ambiguous allure. It's a creative dream team.”
Let’s look at some cats in art over time, what do you think?
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Cats Suggested as the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, 1850
Detail
Marc Chagall, La Poet, 1949-1950
Will Barnet, Woman with Cats, 1962
Alexander Calder, Mary Reynolds with Her Cats, 1955
Pierra Auguate Renoir, Child with a Cat, 1887
Eduard Manet, A Cat Curled Up, Sleeping, 1861
Arise from sleep, old cat,
And with great yawns and stretchings…
Amble out for love
― Issa, Japanese Haiku
Felix Valloton, Laziness, 1896
Henriëtte Ronner-Knip, The Cat at Play
Say
Cats are like cilantro, people love ‘em or hate ‘em. Where do you stand?
Do
Brush up on your cat facts
The oldest known pet cat is from 9,500 years ago in Cyprus.
Cats share 95.6% of their DNA with tigers.
The collective noun for a group of cats is a clowder or a glaring; a litter of kittens is also known as a kindle.
They walk by moving the front and back legs on one side together, then the other, similar to only giraffes and camels.
Their hearing is acute: their ears have 32 muscles (humans have six) and are receptive to over twice the ultrasonic hearing capabilities of dogs.
Though they nap up to 15 hours a day, they almost never fall into REM sleep.
They spend anywhere between a third and a half of their waking hours grooming themselves.
It turns out that Abraham Lincoln had four cats that lived in the White House with him.
A house cat could beat superstar runner Usain Bolt in the 200-meter dash.
Studies suggest that domesticated cats first appeared around 3600 B.C.
The first known cat video was recorded in 1894.
There are about 88 million pet cats in the United States, which makes them the most popular pet in the country!
Get Uncle Andy’s Cats by James Warhola.
Cat videos! Your’e welcome!
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