On Cats by Jacques Dalbray

Discussion

FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

On this page from the March 30, 1901, issue of L’Illustration (Illustration), a French magazine, colorful depictions of cats surround a short text praising those animals and their place in history. The cats sit, sleep, and prowl around the columns of text, as if they are furnishings to climb and sleep on. Color illustrations were particularly difficult and expensive to reproduce before the advent of modern printing technology because each color had to be printed independently. As a result, artists like Théophile Alexandre Steinlen developed strategies to achieve the maximum effect by overlapping as few colors as possible, such as the yellow, gray, and black that create a variety of fur patterns here.

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