Japanese Art

The cat  achieved lasting fame in Japanese art, where  it was represented in scroll paintings, pottery, bronzes, and ivories for almost a thousand years.

 From the 1700s onward, cats became  even more widespread in Japanese art. As in China and throughout Europe, the cat was associated with evil spirits (see page 28), and Japan's  double-tailed witch cat of Okabe was a particularly common subject.

Most Japanese paintings and woodblock prints show cats in the typical tortie-and-white mi-fee patterning, seen in the Japanese Bobtail today, but in earlier works the cats tend to have longer tails. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, bobtails and predominantly white cats appear more and more in illustrations.

The most accessible renditions of cats in Japanese art are those portrayed in woodblock prints. Beginning with Utamaro (1753-1806) and Koryusai (late 18th century), through to the magnificent portrayals by Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Utagawa Kumyoshi (1797-1861), cats are portrayed with a reality seldom seen in Western art.

Utamaro included cats as the companions of beautiful women, while Hiroshige portrayed cats in scenes, such as the series Famous Sites of   Edo, in vividly realistic attitudes. But it was Kuniyoshi, more than any other Japanese artist, who depicted cats with supreme accuracy and acute observation. He adored cats, and his studio was overrun by them.

As a young boy, Kawanabe Gyosai (1831-1889) was Kuniyoshi's pupil, and he later sketched Kuniyoshi holding a cat in one arm and painting while other cats washed themselves and frolicked at his feet.

Perhaps Kuniyoshi's most famous work is the triptych woodblock print of the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road, with each station represented by a cat. Most of the cats are short-tailed and particolored, but there are also striped tabbies and solid-colored cats, as well as the double-tailed witch cat of Okabe.

Cats also play a significant role in Kuniyoshis other works. In his theatrical scenes, demonic and spectral cats from kabuki plays are invested with recognizable feline characteristics, while his portraits of actors, nobles, and courtesans. often include incidental cats.

In one of these,  he portrays a beautiful young noblewomen painting butterflies while a kitten pounces on her finished paintings. Although it is intended to be an homage to the skiill of young woman, Kuniyoshi's portrait is alsc an astute comment on the natural predatory instinct of cats.

This is typical of the best of revealing acute natural observation  within an apparently rigid, stylized medium