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Louis Wain and the Crazy Cats

Blogs > UltimateHurl
Post a Reply
UltimateHurl
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Ireland591 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-03 21:43:07
April 03 2012 21:22 GMT
#1

[image loading]
[One of my new paintings, a landscape]


I've become fascinated by how I can improve myself as an artist. I really love life drawing and trying to capture a moment, or a person's likeness, but I really want to develop the sort of concept art finish that I really admire from Zero Cartin, or the style that I love to see from fishuu. Taking my cue from learning Starcraft I've been looking at the pros for tips. One really skilled pro-artist I really admire, who lead a fascinating life, is Louis Wain.

Louis Wain was a British artist who lived between 1860 and 1939, whose preferred subject was cats. He had a lovely illustrative style and distinct cartoonish cats, which he started drawing to cheer up his ailing wife, who unfortunately passed away soon after (of unrelated breast cancer, the cat drawings are excellent and not at all lethal).


[image loading]
[A Louis Wain Cat, accept no substitute]


Wain became incredibly popular for his cat images, which I really like because of his use of line. I tend to see shading and light when I draw, which is very valuable for painting but not illustration.The thing is, Wain wasn't always so stylised in his work, in his early career his work looked more like something I could relate to:

[image loading]
[His early more realist cat style]

[image loading]
[I've recently started drawing women, it's going ok]


As you can see I don't compare, but I'm on the same path, and it's good to know I can expand my skill set in that direction.I've never really been able to draw without shading, lineart is an impossibility for me, so I've been trying to learn from his approach. This means entirely abandoning the way I render and working from the ground up. I'm not jumping right in with cats, but it's been interesting, which is to say;

[image loading]
[I have not been quick to learn]

I'd be terrified of being set in my ways. Wain's story sadly does not end with the huge popularity of his work, which extended to greetings cards and a book and let him fund animal charities.

Wain suffered a breakdown after World War 1 and became impoverished and schizophrenic at 57. This left him in the pauper's wing of an asylum, but he continued to paint. The progression of his style now appears in psychology textbooks

[image loading]
[The progression is profound and bizarre, but represents such an interesting exploration of abstract cats.]

Wain's later cats are bizarre but such bold images I'm really intrigued, because I could never be so abstract, but I wish I could. I stand in envy of his talent even as he suffered such mental torment.A fund was set up for him by fans of his work, notably H.G. Wells, which allowed him the comfort of better asylums and to continue his work until his death in 1939.

"He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves." - H.G. Wells



Oh, some had asked, so I made a shirt out of the subject of my last blog:
The shirt is available on Redbubble if you're interested
[image loading]


*****
SirJolt
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
the Dagon Knight4003 Posts
April 03 2012 22:02 GMT
#2
I actually loved Wain's earlier stuff; there's a sense of life to that cat that somehow seems to have captured the quintessence of the animal. The later stuff is lovely too, but not really to my tastes.
Moderator@SirJolt
UltimateHurl
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Ireland591 Posts
April 03 2012 22:51 GMT
#3
His early stuff is great, I just love to see that he is capable of the range that he demonstrates. Heartening to see that ability can transfer to different styles so well, hope to practice more in styles totally outside my comfort-zone.
Rice
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United States1332 Posts
April 04 2012 01:27 GMT
#4
Louis wain is awesome, I actually wrote a paper about some of his works.
Freedom will be defended at the cost of civil liberties.
Torte de Lini
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Germany38463 Posts
April 04 2012 04:34 GMT
#5
What does the cat signify though? Does he just like cats?
https://twitter.com/#!/TorteDeLini (@TorteDeLini)
UltimateHurl
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Ireland591 Posts
April 04 2012 07:57 GMT
#6
Rice: Really? I'd love to hear about it. I know his work fell out of fashion for a while until the 60s, and has been popular since. Nick Cave is apparently a big fan, put on the first showing of his work outside England.

Torte: I think that's a really interesting question, and one I don't really have an answer for. I could say it was something that reminded him of his late wife, who convinced him to share them with the world after he'd drawn them for her, or he drew them because of his love of animals, but I couldn't be sure.
Torte de Lini
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Germany38463 Posts
April 04 2012 07:58 GMT
#7
Is the cat a signifcation of his personality or inward view of the world?
https://twitter.com/#!/TorteDeLini (@TorteDeLini)
SirJolt
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
the Dagon Knight4003 Posts
April 04 2012 08:31 GMT
#8
I think it's often a mistake to try to read into the artist in consideration of a work.

The general rule is to attempt to interpret the work as it stands, independent of the author. It allows the text (and I use the term loosely here to include painting/film/whatever else) a freedom that consideration of the artist might stifle.

Not a hard rule, just the way I'd see it.
Moderator@SirJolt
UltimateHurl
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Ireland591 Posts
April 04 2012 08:56 GMT
#9
On April 04 2012 17:31 SirJolt wrote:
I think it's often a mistake to try to read into the artist in consideration of a work.

The general rule is to attempt to interpret the work as it stands, independent of the author. It allows the text (and I use the term loosely here to include painting/film/whatever else) a freedom that consideration of the artist might stifle.

Not a hard rule, just the way I'd see it.


This is generally the way to approach things, if the work needs outside explanation in any way it's probably not going to do well for itself. Wain's life is an interesting explanation of his progression in style, but not an explanation of his choices or subject matter
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