These 8 masterpieces reveal how cats changed the course of art forever

From the painted corridors of ancient Egypt to the fevered walls of contemporary street art, cats have slinked – or perhaps sashayed – through art history, leaving pawprints and mystery at every turn. Never quite dog nor horse, the domestic feline took its sweet (and complicated) time to claim its spot in the halls of artistic immortality, bewitching, unnerving, and charming artists through the ages. Ready to follow this tail? Let’s unravel how eight masterpieces – and so many artists – beautifully bent the arc of art’s evolution in the name of the cat.

A Divine Start: Sacred Felines and Shifting Symbols

The cat’s journey in art began not in playful distraction, but in divine reverence. In ancient Egypt, cats graced temple murals as the sacred animal of the goddess Bastet, protector of home and fertility. Killing a cat? Unthinkable. These mural cats were depicted banishing evil and securing prosperity—talk about a dignified start in the arts!

Cats formed temple décor, driving away ill spirits and functioning as household talismans.
Their presence in Egyptian art underlined their sacrosanct status for centuries.

But after their Egyptian heyday, cats faced a long artistic exile in the West. By the European Middle Ages, especially if they donned black coats, cats were saddled with symbolism of evil, witchcraft, even the devil himself. The Church suspected them of demonic pacts and, as a result, felines almost vanished from paintings and sculpture until the Dutch Golden Age. Meanwhile, in 12th-century Japan, cats gracefully reappeared—this time as woodblock print celebrities, centuries before the rise of feline influencers on the web.

From Malice to Muse: Domestic Triumphs and Modern Icons

Things started looking up for the cat during the Renaissance, particularly in the bustling bourgeois interiors of 17th-century Holland. No longer maligned, cats became natural fixtures in kitchen scenes and still lifes, symbols of patience or idleness. By the 19th century, their reputation had soared; complex societal changes nudged artists’ eyes toward daily domestic life. Independent, wandering, and irrepressibly modern, cats became the insignia of bohemia and urban spirit.

Pierre Bonnard made cats mainstays of his intimate home scenes.
Édouard Manet snuck a black cat at the feet of his infamous Olympia, lending her presence an edge of independence and ambiguous sensuality—a deliberate departure from the era’s faithful canine symbols.

And then came Theophile Alexandre Steinlen. His legendary poster for Le Chat Noir cabaret in late-19th-century Montmartre transformed the feline into an outright cultural icon—bold, enigmatic, and ever-so-slightly aloof. For Symbolist artists, the cat projected mystery, the subconscious, and a certain chilly beauty, often poised beside ethereal women.

Into the 20th Century: The Cat Unleashed

Crossing into the modern age, the cat shrugged off any remaining excess symbolism. Now, the form and personality of the feline became art for art’s sake. Picasso—himself a renowned cat-lover and friend of Afghan hounds—immortalized the animal’s power in cubist renderings of sometimes surprising ferocity.

Andy Warhol, in the 1970s, celebrated his 25 cats named Sam (and one blue lady cat), making them recurring stars of his prints and drawings—serving repetition and pop aesthetics in equal measure.
Gustav Klimt, smitten with his own cats, famously claimed their urine was the finest fixative for his drawings. (Everyone’s a critic!)

In contemporary art, the cat rules the digital domain as the undisputed king of memes and online videos. Yet, even beyond viral moments, today’s artists plumb the depths of feline stillness or mischievous energy. From urban sculpture and photography to exuberant street art – like Thoma Vuille’s bright, smiling M. Chat, born from a child’s sketch to become a global totem – the cat’s enigmatic gaze endures.

Masterpieces and Moments: Some Cat-tastic Highlights

The feline’s trail through art is marked not just by anonymous cats but by true pictorial milestones:

Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s 19th-century woodblocks, including his playful feline road trip along the Tokaido, where 55 cats enact puns based on checkpoint names—proving cats have always been clever scene-stealers.
Pierre Bonnard’s 1910 painting joins his daughter Marguerite with cats, emotional staples of his daily life, often curled at his feet as he painted.
Alberto Giacometti’s famous 1951 sculpture, inspired by his brother Diego’s cat—slim and sinuous, the embodiment of feline grace, and spiritually paired with his canine sculpture, modeled after Picasso’s Afghan hound.
Colossal canvases, such as Carl Kahler’s My Wife’s Lovers (1891)—commissioned by millionaire Kate Birdsall Johnson, showcasing 42 of her 50+ cats, the painting’s title itself a cheeky nod from her husband.
Steinlen’s iconic 1896 Le Chat Noir poster, presiding over Parisian souvenir shops to this day.

Conclusion: Centuries of Artistic Cat-itude

No passing fad, the cat in art is a reflection of our own quest for simple beauty, mystery, and even the bittersweet story of our domestication. Whether divine, diabolical, domestic, or downright cute, the cat’s portrait in art is an inheritance that promises to endure—for millennia to come. Next time you spot a noble or naughty feline in a painting, linger: behind each perfect line and inscrutable eye lies centuries of inspiration, mischief, and purrfect company.