Kadosaka Ryu “Curl (cat)” 2008 engraving
The streets are full of cats.
Familiar cats you come across on your way to work. Cat videos that catch your eye while cyber-looping.
Cat goods, cat sweets, etc. Of course, there are also many artworks featuring cats.
Kenji Yanobes “Taro, Cats, and the Sun” (11/10), which was held at the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum of Art, is based on the story of a space cat riding a spaceship (the Tower of the Sun) and landing on Earth to implant life. The introduction of the exhibition, which states that the exhibition will give viewers “a visual experience they have never had before,” may have focused on the grand storyline and the scale of the giant objects in the exhibition, but if you look at the cat motif, you will get the opposite impression: you will have a “visual experience with a sense of deja vu” even without knowing the artist. I think that the exhibition is a “visual experience with a sense of déjà vu,” and that it is a content exhibition that you can become familiar with without knowing the artist.
Familiarity is the foundation for enjoying art.
Philosopher Koji Taki has often discussed the importance of cultivating familiarity and familiarity in art appreciation.
Taki states that in order to truly experience art, one must be in a "relaxed state of mind. In his book, “The Historical Philosophy of the Moving Image,” Taki mentions that seeing an exhibition only once is not enough for this purpose, but that by seeing it repeatedly, one can somehow begin to feel and, someday, truly understand it.
Takis ideas were clarified in the process of reading Walter Benjamins thought. Benjamin states that there are two ways of accepting architecture: (1) appreciation and (2) use, with (1) being visual and (2) tactile.
Taki focuses on (2) tactile reception, and explains that to achieve this, it is important to spend time, gain experience, and savor architecture, photography, and art in a relaxed and sensory environment.
It is somewhat forced to link cats and art appreciation, but let us take cats not as individuals but as symbols of familiarity and relaxation. Cats, being close to humans, coexist with us whether we like it or not, and somehow make us lower our threshold of alertness. We unconsciously share a time of “relaxation” with them. I find cats to be interesting beings that shortcut the time process it takes to let down their guard. I cant help but think that if we could formulate a cat equation, we could derive a solution that would lead to a world where people can relax and let their guard down.
If people feel that art is not something they go to see, but something that is always present in their lives, like the presence of cats, I believe that art will be accepted and will be able to take root culturally.
Nanako Okawa “Going out of ones way (3)” 2022 Japanese paper, watercolors
Now, we have talked about cats as an analogy for measuring time and distance for familiarity, but when an artist uses a cat as a subject, there is a hint of a special individual relationship. Here are a few works based on personal experience that are (or may have been) created with cats as a motif.
MITSOU" by Balthus (1919)
This is a series of 40 ink drawings made by the French artist Balthus as a boy. The composition is nearly square on postcard-size paper. With a simple touch reminiscent of woodblock prints, they depict the encounter between the boy and the kitten and their parting. The first half of the work is a series of casual scenes of daily life spent by the boy and the kitten. The gestures of the boys hand, the way he tilts his head, and the direction of his gaze show that he is giving the kitten a lot of care and affection, even if we cannot see his facial expression. In the latter half of the film, the boy is depicted holding the hand of a woman who seems to be his mother and complaining about something, then peeking under the bed and going out into the city with a candle under the moonlight, looking for the kitten that suddenly disappeared. At the end of the story, when the boy stands alone in his room and puts his hands under his eyes, you can almost hear his sobbing voice. A sense of helplessness and compassion arises, having no way to comfort him, and I recall having a similar sense of loss about the cat.
According to the passage, Balthus was eight years old when he began this painting, and three years later, at the age of 11, he finished it. The maturity of the composition may be seen in the fact that the painting was completed after several years. The Austrian poet Rilke, impressed by this work, published “Mitsu” under the title “Mitsu: Forty Pictures by Balthus” (1921). It can be said that this work was enough to make Balthus aware of his talent. During his lifetime, Balthus did not like to have his paintings criticized. He said that most of them were misguided and speculated too much. He said, "Dont read the paintings, look at them. Just love the painting. This work can be positioned as the starting point of Balthuss career, teaching us to "look at the painting, not read it, and simply love it.
text： tomiko mabuchi
Maya Wakabayashi, “Cat, Surprise,” 2015 Cat Glass, cast
Related Pages
Kadosaka Ryu「curl」
Okawa Nanako「Going out of ones way (3)」
Maya Wakabayashi「Surprised Cat」
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