Concerning Cats 



that to which we are accustomed in this western part 

 of the world, but who had a wonderful faculty for 

 making his queer little cat figures seem intensely alive. 



The other was a Swiss artist, named Gottfried Mind, 

 whose cat pictures are so perfect in their way that he 

 came to be honorably known as " the Cat Raphael." 



The other two members of the cat quartet are the 

 French artist. Monsieur Louis Eugene Lambert, whose 

 pictures are almost as well known in this country as 

 they are in France ; and the Dutch artist, Madame 

 Henriette Ronner, whose delightful cat pictures are 

 known even better, as she catches the softer and 

 sweeter graces of the cat more truly than Lambert 



A thoroughly good picture of a cat is hard to paint, 

 from a technical standpoint, because the artist must 

 represent not only the soft surface of fur, but the 

 imderl)ring hard lines of muscle : and his studies must 

 be made under conditions of cat perversity which are 

 at times quite enough to drive him wild. If he is to 

 represent the cat in repose, he must wait for her to 

 take that position of her own accord ; and then, just as 

 his sketch is well under way, she is liable to rise, 

 stretch herself, and walk off. If his picture is to rep- 

 resent action, he must wait for the cat to do what he 

 wants her to do, and that many times before he can 

 be quite sure that his drawing is correct. With these 

 severe limitations upon cat painting, it is not surpris- 

 ing that very few good pictures of cats have been 

 painted. 



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