Cats as muses

For my birthday last year, I was bought an extremely wonderful Chat Noir print by my older sister. I was sat looking at it recently and considering how often cats have inspired people in the arts.

Cats throughout the ages have captivated humans with their seeming aloofness, their mysterious behaviours and their general joie de vivre for life.

Granted, there are some cats that inspire people for entirely the opposite reasons; a fairly recent online sensation is Grumpy Cat, a rather sullen looking individual whose appearance has graced thousands of satirical memes.

But mostly, the grace, elegance and beauty along the free spiritedness of a cat has prompted artists,  writers and musicians to try and encapsulate whatever it is about the species that they so love.

I was thinking of some of my favourite results of this fascination, and decided to mention them in this blog.

One of the first things that spring to mind is a book entitled “Tailchasers Song” by Tad Williams. Tad writes the book from the perspective of a cat and it’s a truly outstanding read. I’m told that at some point, there’s an animation of the book in the pipeline and I’m looking forward to that immensely.

A beautiful animation called “The Cat Returns” by Studio Ghibli is also another tremendous piece related to cats. I don’t want to write too much about the plotline, as it would spoil viewing a bit, but it’s magical to watch.

Clearly, my favourite piece of art related to cats that is well known is the Chat Noir mentioned at the beginning of the blog.

Musically? Well, it’s difficult to choose just one song. There are so many that make me smile. But the two I will always favour over all the others is “Love Cats” by The Cure and “Stray Cat Strut” by the Stray Cats.

So you can make your own mind up which is the best out of the two, I’ve attached  links to both. Hopefully, they’ll make you smile as much as  they make me.