cat in the summer meadow

thanks the-athenaeum.org. PD: US

I have a soft spot for the cats of Swedish wildlife painter Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939).  Longtime readers of the Museum will know we've seen him before (remember Sleeping Jeppe?).  He's considered a primary influence on wildlife painting at the turn of the 20th century down to this day, and his style owes a fair amount to Impressionism.  I personally often find almost a Symbolist feeling in his paintings of birds and of cats.  This one, "Cat in the Summer Meadow" (date not found, but stylistically similar to others of the late 1880's), certainly has the fresh immediacy of Impressionism, but the undefined scumble of greenery and dandelions is more like an immediate invitation to visit the cat's world at his level, without words, just being.  Clearly wide-wild-eyed kitty here is looking for at least a bug to destroy, but that's a cat's world after all.  Liljefors knew and loved that about them, and painted them with a certain freedom of form to equal that independence.