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The Art of Feline Funnies 1869 or 1969

January 8, 2016 / 31 Comments
If you love cats, sharing makes us purrrr :-)

Feline_funnies

The deeper the Internet archives, the longer our love affair with cats grows. For our Friday Finds and Feline Funnies, we have two fab examples of vintage cat art.


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As soon as modern photography developed in the early 1800s, the easiest subjects were buildings, landscapes or still life since they didn’t move. Photos then required a very long exposure period of about 8 hours. In 1839 speed and techniques improved with the daguerreotype and more images of people and inevitably pets, appeared. Photography up until the turn of the century required the subject to remain as motionless as possible for about 10 minutes. No easy task for squirmy kids or kittens. Even with anti-shake settings today, it’s not that easy to capture the ephemeral quality of cats. They will photo bomb for the hell of it.

I took liberties colorizing and tweaking this antique French photo of a young girl and her patient cat. It’s likely taken later during the Victorian era than 1869 but the 1860s was the earliest period I could find decent quality images from. All images until Kodak invented the film roll in 1888 were laborious one photo-at-a-time set ups.

Some things never change. For over 150 years, cats have been cajoled into sitting still for the camera. Cat bloggers and their cats are notorious for their love/hate relationship with the “flashybox”. Thankfully our models or meowdels don’t have to sit still for more than a second to snap an image. But one is never enough and then there are those infamous photo bombs.

History buffs will purr over an image/photography timeline.

feline_funnies

About a hundred years later, in the ’70s, the iconic cat cartoonist Bernard Kliban enjoyed the peak of his fame. Thanks to the digital age his work is loved by a new generation of art and cat lovers. I hope Kilban isn’t rolling over in his grave from my homage of his black and white ink drawing.
feline_funnies
If you’re a fan of Kliban you may not know his deeper side as depicted in an astute analysis at thepaincomics.com. Yeah, I know who has time for a 25 page PDF but you will never look at Kliban, the social satirist the same way again. It’s amazing how well his work has aged with few truly dated pieces. It’s a fitting tribute and reminder that not all artists in any medium get recognized for their worth or may get famous for one hit wonders eschewing the real treasure.
It doesn’t take much digging in the past to uncover see how easily the vintage works paved the way for the LOL cat craze, the cats of Instagram frenzy and current cat culture mania. I don’t see it as anything new but new and improved as future editions of Friday Feline Finds will reveal.

Do tell: How do your cats (past or present) feel about the “Flashy Box” ?

 

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