Painting Cats

In this book's introduction, 'Why Do We Collect Pictures of Cats?' Marge Piercy tells us,'Deborah DeWit Marchant belongs to a long tradition of distinguished painters who have found cats irresistible.' Ms. Piercy's introduction illuminates why we find cats irresistible and catalogs their many qualities we find intriguing. At the center of our relationships with cats good or bad lies our need to ascribe human emotions and intelligence to them. . . . Ms. Marchant's point of view, told engagingly in this book, opens the way to further contemplation of this subject. She says, 'Painting cats is a complicated business. They are not like landscapes, or cozy lamp-lit interiors, or windows with a view. . . . For a domesticated animal, the cat is bewitchingly inscrutable about its true nature, so we tend to describe cats as we believe them to be, not necessarily as we know them to be.' The story of her life with cats brings us along willingly, especially with the arrival of the feral cat, Cabbit, at her household. The process of Cabbit s taming is heartwarming and thoughtful, leading to an epiphany shared by the artist and the reader: the tentative fear of painting cats is conquered as she wonders, 'What more could I bring to my work, if I could be like a cat?' . . . The book can be enjoyed on many levels. There are the meditations by two cat lovers who have written engagingly about their passion for them. Then there is the vivid imagery that delights and provokes us. Your options are to flip through the book and enjoy the artwork, or to flop down on the couch to immerse yourself in the complicated world of everyday cat behavior.