Impressionist Cats and Dogs: Pets in the Painting of Modern Life
Impressionism was revolutionary, and impressionist artists purposefully portrayed animals as symbols of their dissent. Cats and dogs stood for sexuality, independence, loyalty, and the artists' self-image, and Rubin's lavishly illustrated volume explores exactly "how pets in art reveal artists' attitudes not just toward animals, but toward the people they painted, including themselves in their identities as artists." Beginning with a brief overview of the symbolic meanings of pets in ancient Egyptian, medieval, and modern art, Rubin quickly focuses on impressionist works and the symbolic and realistic roles animals played in such noteworthy paintings as Manet's rebelliously sensualOlympiaand its opposite, Renoir'sMadame Charpentier and Her Children, which celebrates the natural place pets played in the rise of the middle classes. Rubin also discusses pets in the paintings of Monet, Caillebotte, Seurat, Cezanne, and Courbet, whose cat inThe Studio of the Painterembodies the artist's determination to retain his artistic independence. An unprecedented, revealing, and enjoyable new angle on a much examined movement.Lauren RobertsCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved