Artwork
On Cats by Jacques Dalbray
On Cats by Jacques Dalbray is a print by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen. It dates from 1901 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
About this work
This painting shows cats sitting, sleeping, and prowling around columns of text.
The cats seem to be part of the furniture, climbing and sleeping on the columns. This illustration was made for a French magazine, which is interesting because color illustrations were hard to reproduce back then.
Check out the work of artist: Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (Swiss, 1859–1923) for more like this.
Overview
The cats sit, sleep, and prowl around the columns of text, as if they are furnishings to climb and sleep on.
On this page from the March 30, 1901, issue of L’Illustration (Illustration), a French magazine, colorful depictions of cats surround a short text praising those animals and their place in history. The cats sit, sleep, and prowl around the columns of text, as if they are furnishings to climb and sleep on. Color illustrations were particularly difficult and expensive to reproduce before the advent of modern printing technology because each color had to be printed independently. As a result, artists like Théophile Alexandre Steinlen developed strategies to achieve the maximum effect by overlapping as few colors as possible, such as the yellow, gray, and black that create a variety of fur patterns here.
Artist & collection
Artist
Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (November 10, 1859 – December 13, 1923), was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau painter and printmaker. He was politically engaged and collaborated with the anarchist and socialist press.
