So .... I just took up the challenge to find good cat art on the internet -- which was not easy -- since "cat" also refers to "catalog" -- and contemporary art of ANY kind is so overwhelmingly awful.
But -- here's the first good one I found -- by Yumeji Takehisa(1884-1934) --- an artist of whom I had never heard -- so I guess the quest was worth it. (is that cat-woman shedding a tear ? How sentimental! And how beautiful, too. Apparently, Yumeji was taken to task by his contemporary Japanese critics for being so unconventional -- and he had not apprenticed to a master. But I doubt he was ever accused of being too sentimental -- except by critics who followed Modernism. But even then -- I don't know. Yumeji was apparently a big fan of Edward Munch, and may have considered himself a cutting-edge modernist. Whatever -- he was and still is very popular -- with own museum in Tokyo) I don't know whether the injunction against sentimentality (unless ironic) still holds in contemporary art schools. Did that teacher really bring in some pickled cats for the students to draw? What a joke! This is the educational community that created Damien Hirst. *********** >On this subject, one of my earliest art instructors repeatedly cautioned us against sentimentality and as an excercise he brought into drawing class several embalmed and flayed cats from the biology department for us to draw. He said that there was no way we could be sentimental about that subject matter. Sentimentality seems to have to with content and I don't know why you can't make a good work of art about sentimental subject matter. ____________________________________________________________ Click here for a free directory of employee development and training solutions. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/PnY6rc0pGA5gFXn4R810xzqjj3BCWJ ieG7XTE29vWMGA30eTLrEUE/
