Ugly Medieval Cats

April 4, 2018 2:00 PM

The bad looking cats of classical painting [Content warning: Ugly is in the eye of the beholder]

Related: Ugly Renaissance Babies [Content warning: cherubs, often nekkid, as seen previously]

posted by chavenet (45 comments total)

Yep, my cats are not annoying enough. They definitely need a bagpipe.


Also, this should really be a "Two Monks" article, and now I miss The Toast again.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:04 PM on April 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

That sad, bummed cat playing his lute is a universal feeling.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:09 PM on April 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Ugly is in the eyes of the beholder

And I'm happy to confirm that those cats are uglier than pugs.
posted by Beholder at 2:11 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

There are no ugly cats, there are only --

OMG THOSE CATS ARE REALLY UGLY.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:11 PM on April 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

“Anyways...here's Wonderwall.”
posted by Fizz at 2:12 PM on April 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Came to make a 'They're good cats, Brent' joke, but after RTFA (LATFP (looking at the f-ing pictures?) , they are not good cats ☹️
posted by Fig at 2:13 PM on April 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

It's uncanny
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:15 PM on April 4, 2018 [14 favorites]

at some point while scrolling that page, I forgot what cats look like

I know those weren't accurate cats, but I no longer know what a cat looks like
posted by idiopath at 2:16 PM on April 4, 2018 [29 favorites]

My brother asked his close friends and family to make a small drawing/sketch for him for his birthday. Once he got it, he let them know that it would be tattooed on his arm. My dad's contribution was a cat that has a face with human features, remarkably similar to some of these. If only he was born 700 years ago.
posted by Fig at 2:21 PM on April 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Is this where we share our favorite art cats? I love the daring little friend in Tsuguharu Fujita's Still Life with Cat (see also: this self-portrait).
posted by everybody had matching towels at 2:24 PM on April 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

Maybe 700 years ago there were just a lot of cats with weirdly human faces.
posted by mrmurbles at 2:25 PM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

(see also: this self-portrait).

Is the cat within the picture-within-a-picture, or behind the artist's shoulder? Maybe it's supposed to be ambiguous?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:26 PM on April 4, 2018

What is the bird doing to the cat's butt in that last one??
posted by languagehat at 2:34 PM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

That is just how cats looked in the Middle Ages. Don't Judge, you judgy judgers.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:41 PM on April 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Meoyuck! I immediately stole this link and put it on Facebook. Nice find!
posted by w0mbat at 2:52 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

That one with the bird doesn't even look a little like a cat. I really think it's a dog. This, however, is a cat with eighty toes.
posted by irisclara at 2:55 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

The 5,000 Paw Beans of Dr. C
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:02 PM on April 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

this could be us but u playin
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:07 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe 700 years ago there were just a lot of cats with weirdly human faces.

As with everything in art back then, I just assume it was illegal under pain of burning to paint anything other than a human face.
posted by rhizome at 3:15 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Naw you guys that first one was just retouched like this one.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:23 PM on April 4, 2018

Love the bird getting ready to root around in some weird cat's butthole.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:26 PM on April 4, 2018

"This is my life now."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:47 PM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

I have to assume this is evidence for vampires that used to be extremely powerful.
posted by flaterik at 3:56 PM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

These are only marginally better than the cats that I draw. Obviously I was born in the wrong era.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:17 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

"This is my life now meow."

Fixed.
posted by Fizz at 5:12 PM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Naw, I love the cat and dog one. The dog is nicely drawn! The dog is frowning at the cat! The cat is a mess! The cat has done something naughty and has the dumbest expression on its face!
posted by chronic sublime at 5:12 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

William Blake's tyger is not much of an advance, to be honest.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:32 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

From the Demaundes Joyous, a riddle-book from 1511:

What beast is it that hath her tail between her eyes?
It is a cat when she licketh her arse.

posted by Pallas Athena at 5:55 PM on April 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

I can just imagine a five year old telling that joke now, "What animal has a tail between its eyes? A CAT LICKING ITS OWN BUTT."

Tells you how far humor has come in the last several centuries!
posted by rhizome at 6:29 PM on April 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

These look like pictures of cats created by people who had only ever seen bad pictures of cats.
posted by cirgue at 6:37 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yes, cirgue, this is what I don't understand. I'll happily accept that pictures of animals they've never actually seen are going to be horrible made up nonsense, like this crocodile (though I love him and he is perfect just the way he is), but cats were like, right there. All the time. Everybody could see cats in person, even the most sheltered monk. There are manuscripts with paw prints on them in ink from mischievous felines. So how then are all these cats so profoundly un-catlike?
posted by Mizu at 7:00 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I mean I really can't ever judge anyone for how they draw cats, because I grew up with a cat who has shorter proportions and a flatter face than most cats (only, like, slightly so, though, not enough that she's any special breed) and so I've always drawn cats with short noses and short bodies, and only recently realized most cats do not... look like that. Just last year, I was finally able to bring said cat from my parents' house to my new apartment, and my partner took one look at her and said the most damning thing I've ever heard about my art: "She looks exactly like every cat you've ever drawn."

But at least my cats do, in fact, look like an actual cat that exists, so I've got that going for me at least.
posted by brook horse at 8:13 PM on April 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

These look like pictures of cats created by people who had only ever seen bad pictures of cats.

That happened a lot in the old days.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:09 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

These look like pictures of cats created by people who had only ever seen bad pictures of cats.

Mark Catesby, John James Audubon's predecessor, probably qualifies as a, if not the, bridge from the old ways to the new ways. Travel improvements surely plays a large role there.
posted by rhizome at 11:20 PM on April 4, 2018

That happened a lot in the old days.

Elephants too!
posted by finka at 11:44 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Autistic savant artists are often said not to do faces at all, though there's one, Jonathan Lerman, who does almost nothing but -- and the ability to see faces seems to reside in a different part of the brain than the ability to see the rest of the world.

My migraines used to start with seeing people's faces as terrifyingly grotesque and deranged, but the rest of the world was fine.

I really wonder whether these artists looked at cat faces with the face-seeing part of their brains at all, or just kind of saw them generically and were at a loss when it came to actually giving them faces.
posted by jamjam at 12:12 AM on April 5, 2018

Tells you how far humor has come in the last several centuries!

Considering that the olds joke recorded is about farting in Babylon, you can push that back at least 3000 years...
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:34 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

I guess my cats, mostly rescued strays and ferals, are all defective or something, because these look pretty accurate to me. I mean other than the clothing and the musical instruments, because my cats are talentless little fuckers.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 4:04 AM on April 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

That’s just what cats would look like if your brain hadn’t been colonized by the toxoplasma parasite. It wasn’t nearly as pervasive in those days.
posted by rodlymight at 4:21 AM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

these cats were all painted by that old lady who wrecked the jesus.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:28 AM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

That sad cat playing a lute is sitting under a Veronica persica, bird's eye speedwell. It's a great rendition of the flower, too.

Except... ladybugs for scale.

So yeah.
posted by seyirci at 8:11 AM on April 5, 2018

I sense a new profile pic ...
posted by carter at 10:36 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have nothing clever to say, but I absolutely love this. These cats are so bad.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:41 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

That sad, bummed cat playing his lute is a universal feeling.

Play him hence, Lute Cat.

(By MeFi's own The Whelk)
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:51 AM on April 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Yeah, honestly, medieval paintings and drawings of people look as un-person-y to me as these cats look un-catty. Different visual language and artistic conventions.

One cat trait they seem to have nailed: lots of "blep" tongues.
posted by obliviax at 1:18 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]