WHY DO CATS PAINT?
I was told that domesticating cats is very difficult. It's not true. My cat domesticated me in a couple of days.
William Harvey Dana
The artistic talents of cats have been known for thousands of years. Even in ancient times, cats were considered repositories of aesthetic and spiritual meanings.
Archaeological excavations along the banks of the Nile have unearthed Egyptian papyri depicting cats with their front paws resting on a wall, engaged in painting. Probably, due to their ability to stand up and make marks with colors, cats were regarded as intermediaries with the divine, thus bearers of aesthetic and spiritual significance.
In Egypt, the bodies of mummified cats have been found with precious amulets hanging around their necks, and, in the urns where they were placed, the extraordinary presence of rolls of papyrus depicting painted tracks made by their little paws.
In many other periods of human history, numerous drawings can be found representing artist-cats engaged in painting. In a Bestiary from around 950 AD, preserved at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, there is an illustration that showcases feline spiritual power with the presence of two cats inside an alchemist's laboratory. In front of an easel, one of the cats dips its paws in color and then paints astrological signs on the canvas.
In 1978, H. Busch and B. Silver began to take an interest in the phenomenon of painting cats, trying to understand the reasons that lead cats to use colors and trace geometric signs in dust or sand with their paws.
Part of the material was published in 1994 in the book entitled Why Cats Paint, which presents the research from several American and British universities on the subject, to determine whether the behavior of artist-cats is driven by the instinct to mark territory or if it can be said to reflect their aesthetic sense. Regardless, some paintings created by these little felines truly leave one speechless.
I was told that domesticating cats is very difficult. It's not true. My cat domesticated me in a couple of days.
William Harvey Dana
The artistic talents of cats have been known for thousands of years. Even in ancient times, cats were considered repositories of aesthetic and spiritual meanings.
Archaeological excavations along the banks of the Nile have unearthed Egyptian papyri depicting cats with their front paws resting on a wall, engaged in painting. Probably, due to their ability to stand up and make marks with colors, cats were regarded as intermediaries with the divine, thus bearers of aesthetic and spiritual significance.
In Egypt, the bodies of mummified cats have been found with precious amulets hanging around their necks, and, in the urns where they were placed, the extraordinary presence of rolls of papyrus depicting painted tracks made by their little paws.
In many other periods of human history, numerous drawings can be found representing artist-cats engaged in painting. In a Bestiary from around 950 AD, preserved at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, there is an illustration that showcases feline spiritual power with the presence of two cats inside an alchemist's laboratory. In front of an easel, one of the cats dips its paws in color and then paints astrological signs on the canvas.
In 1978, H. Busch and B. Silver began to take an interest in the phenomenon of painting cats, trying to understand the reasons that lead cats to use colors and trace geometric signs in dust or sand with their paws.
Part of the material was published in 1994 in the book entitled Why Cats Paint, which presents the research from several American and British universities on the subject, to determine whether the behavior of artist-cats is driven by the instinct to mark territory or if it can be said to reflect their aesthetic sense. Regardless, some paintings created by these little felines truly leave one speechless.
serenella
23 dec 16
DeRank ™: 0,00 ScieMenZiaTi
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