Metropolitan Cats (1983)

[Music] they're a part of nature that one can bring inside the house they are the interim step between the wild animal and culture and civilization they're such a source for a man's imagination they've inspired music art sculpture poetry they've been IFI cats through our history have always had all sorts of meanings associated with them of course they're beautiful they're absolutely beautiful for look at all cats are beautiful even ugly cats are beautiful and goodness knows the cat has been depicted in art as long as we've had art there are 4,000 years of cats in the Metropolitan Museum of Art they may be hiding but they're there [Music] my all-time favorite cat is called the favorite cat that's that wonderful American engraving by Courier knives it's a small print but when it's blown up it's like the large Andy warhall portraits of M It's s of a big brother cat it confronts you you got to make a decision about it and he certainly is the favorite cat you can tell by the marvelously Placid expression on his face he's fat he's well cared for he probably gets cream all the time those eyes are watching you I get the feeling like their little cameras back there recording everything you do I think the one thing that I've found with cats which is why I've not been involved with them is they do not Bend to human will they absolutely do control their own environment I mean a cat takes over a chair for example and you move around them to some extent I mean the cat likes one end of our sofa well we squeeze to to the other end there's a real problem there's a real problem the cat is going to get that chocolate so he's looking at her and saying how can you do this to me I just want a little bit the little girl has become aware of it she's enclosing the bowl with one hand and has a fist with a spoon in it in the other hand just ready to beat off that cat well you know the cat's going to win this is by an artist St who knew cats who drew them and painted them his entire life it's real one hates to admit that something that's only about 10 in high as boss I think most cats think they're Superior to humans I'm sure mine think they're smarter than I am and they probably are because they always manage to get what they want I don't all the time get what I want this cat is a horse of another color should this cat get up and walk around we'd know he'd have to have a swagger stick I think Stein was the one who recognized the absolute linear beauty of a cat he certainly understood cats he studied them very closely there's an affection in the way he did this the ears the little feathers of the hair the nose the pinkness of it the Paw curled there's an individuality to this cat well the styland made me think of the way they sprawl especially when you're going to bed at night and the cats are on your bed they have a presence that's much larger than their actual size I mean their legs go out and they stretch sometimes they push you out my wife has always never minded the cat sprawling but sometimes I I push her up the cat not my wife [Music] there's a marvelous control of design that pervades Japanese art this is so full of life and so full of movement and so full of senu look at this that's action painting of the best sort the eyes I mean if you took just everything out out of the picture except the eyes and the and the and the victim you'd what a cat is this cat really looks slightly mad I think this is a typical example of cat humor cat sees frog cat captures frog cat either kills frog or loses frog you take your domestic cat out to the country and all of a sudden it becomes the predator and it goes into the fields and you watch your miniature lion or your miniature tiger stalking and then the silly little thing will come back in with a rabbit and put it at your feet it's domesticated again and there is no other animal that I can think of that has that intriguing combination of wildness and Domesticity maybe that's what's so attractive about them the ambiguity the way that Max schmelling was eventually defeated by Joe Lewis in the second match was that Lewis looked at the news reels of the first match and the idea of Max melling telegraphing his punch gave Lewis the [Applause] advantage and I think cats are a little dumb in in that theyve Telegraph their interest they'll follow something along very carefully and then pounds it's a lovely thing to watch a cat spot its victim sneak up with on its victim and capture it the cat's coat is literally spots of color especially on his back the same way an impressionist understood the visible world to be spots of color oh yes very typical scene benoir Who Loved texture probably loved the texture of the cat's fur and obviously does in this particular of painting The cat will reach up and nibble off the tips of every single leaf the woman was a model that Renoir painted off and she actually became Madame Renoir every leaf on the lower fringes have been very neatly chopped off he has very skillfully and beautifully given us the softness the fluffiness it's a losing battle he has given so so perfectly the texture of the fur I've tried lemon I've tried garlic it's a cat-like cat I've tried spanking the cat it's its own self I've tried moving the plant focused on something I've tried everything I think his eyes are closed cats should eat plants but when they he plants in your living room it it is annoying but when you let him outside he'll spend most of the day grazing like a cow it seems to me extremely important to have cats on so many Islamic pictures which show saintly personalities because the prophet Muhammad was a great cat lover and there is a famous story that once a cat slapped on the prophet's sleeve and he had to get up for his prayer and he did not want to disturb the animal so he took scissors and cut the sleeve so that the cat could go on sleeping when the prophet loved something every Muslim is bound to love the same [Music] thing this absolutely adorable Persian cat is depict in an un adorable way he is intent on getting some of that food and he is so interested in that that he's forgetting to be adorable so Beady eyed it's funny but even so one of the ladies is still caressing him as he inches closer and closer to the food that's the way cats are they want some of what you're eating it's also an allegorical thing because the cat has symbolized many things in art throughout the ages good and evil Domesticity and wildness there's a lot more here than simply this particular view of Mount Fuji the cat um just very cooly looks out into the landscape you can see a towel and a bowl there and as you look a little more carefully you can see to the left you have the back of a screen and on the floor on the green to Tommy mats just inside the screen you see a piece of paper in which the Combs the ornamental hair pieces that were worn by these women is kept she's obviously getting dressed either in anticipation or after some um um episode the cat peering out from the window sill over the landscape stands for the cortis for the gisha herself [Music] cats were represented in Chinese art much later than in Japanese art which is unusual because usually the developments in Japanese art came after the reason for that is said to be the old legend that when Buddha died representatives of all the species in the animal kingdom came to his funeral except for cats the eyes have a definite kind of ult look an interior communication with something that you can't touch or see you never really know what a cat's thinking they're very inscrutable when they're looking at you I think we probably read more into those heads than is really in them they're probably just thinking about little Friskies or something [Laughter] the most personal art of all may be folk art but folk may be the wrong word perhaps a better word would be naive untainted by academic training lady with her pets is an absolutely Charming painting by an American Primitive who worked in ducksbury Massachusetts named Rufus Hathaway I like it because it's so strange a thing I really like is her wig and the feathers that are sticking out of it they're totally mad and eccentric just like her collection of birds butterflies and Cat all of her pets are sitting for their port she's really into them she likes them and she wants them to be noted for posterity too it's such an amusing portrait she's been made to sit there and she is not one bit happy this is a little girl this is a cat the artist in this case didn't understand the way a cat was put together or the way a cat really looked early portes often gave uh children a toy or a pet they look more comfortable but she certainly doesn't no she's not enjoying anything she's not even enjoying holding her little cat she really looks uh it's almost like Gert Stein I mean she's looking very this kid hates the painter but she doesn't hate the cat this is something completely different cder emphasized the Ferocious and predatory nature of cats it's just one line that tells you everything he just takes that pen and he moved it and he felt it you could feel it as a result it's amazing what that man could do with the line complicated very complicated very very hostile look at the meeting of the cat's teeth with the underbelly and it's really very Savage it's a typical cder stabile but it's just instead of being in metal it's just in black and white on a page so many of the other paintings and drawings are beautiful but this really expresses everything about the cat and uh it's victim I can't imagine anybody looking at this and not really feeling it Courier knives did a lot of kitty cats a lot of what are called sentimentals little cats little birds all sort of doing cutesy things here we have the cat who was the good little house cat who disappeared went out and did her binge and wasn't watching herself and came home pregnant and she's bringing all of her cute little kittens and aren't they sweet The Happy Hooker with her wages of sin and at the same time if their daughter had done the same thing I mean that it was just very typical of America in the mid 19th century I think cats are night people and they want to play all night long for the last three weeks I've been woken up in the middle of the night by the screams of that little cat I hear hear the but I can't even do it right because it's one of the most sick sounds I've ever [Music] heard I love the little mice hanging from his belt little meals little snacks for the future and are they mouse heads around his neck Bird's heads oh my that's clever I love this Gustaf dor illustration now here's a cat that's really drawn as if it's a human shouting for help for his master who's fallen into the water to me the cat is like on an opera stage and he's singing dequ Aira from very's El trator I mean does he seemed to be a very operatic cat with an operatic C cat immense fabulous boots I've always admired cats with their own attributes and not our own imposed upon them I enjoy cats for themselves I don't need to make them into something else I would prefer to see a cat acting like a cat rather than boots an exception to that would definitely be the Pink Panther [Music] [Applause] [Music] here is this young Manuel oor manri or whatever and just out of playfulness Goya has him put a live bird down in front of two absolutely agile eager cats two cats three cats many people don't realize that there's a third cat in that picture and the one in the background looms a sort of a great black presence all you can see are the two eyes glowing in the dark Goya cats are just marvelous the Curiosity of the cat watching this bird the pet Magpie you know perfectly well if the little boy wasn't there The Magpie wouldn't last very long the little boy is just too perfect to be true isn't he or there's about to be an absolute Massacre with his perfect little suit and his little sash animals always liven up a picture the Caged child caged in his clothes you know they clearly would like to pounce they do anything to get a bird impending disaster he is going to grow up and he too will pray on others in a much more more knowing and willful way than he does now I think Goya understood their beauty but he also understood their implications and I think in his painting he used the three cats to imply another layer of meaning to the composition everyone is a captive there the cats haven't pounced and they don't don't look like they're about to pounce the bird on a leash is a captive and I assume therefore that one has to extrapolate that maybe this young nobleman is a captive of the society that he is in Goya didn't have such a cute version of the world his whole vision of the world was disaster wasn't it these were very difficult and very troubl times in the history of Spain this child is growing up in the midst of literally Waring forces which were going to tear the country apart there's a dimension to the people that Goya painted with some characters it's a sense of sadness with others it's a sense of confinement with others it's a sense of [Music] rebellion this is interesting because it's executed in both temper and oil it's by a Flemish painter who was active about 1500 who is known as the master of the story of Joseph Joseph being the biblical Joseph in many of the the pictures in which cats appear the cat is endowed with a range of human emotions which either says something about the particular painting or the theme of the painting or perhaps about the cat's own attitude toward human events around him I think it's almost ominous that furrowed brow looking outward and slightly a skew not looking you right in the eye there's a cruelty there a kind of I'm going to take what I can get and I don't give a damn about anybody else he's not very endearing [Laughter] cat he looks more like a monkey he's a fat squat little beast he almost looks like a rat I suspected in the 16th century cats probably didn't have a Terribly Happy lot they probably did have to scavenge for food and they probably weren't too healthy the artist probably wasn't approaching the cat from a very positive view point oh the cat was very important in medieval Society they were a means of ridding the cities particularly of [Music] p a cat is one of the very few animals that will attack a snake and kill it most animals won't and you know there always have been a lot of snakes in Egypt there still are also cats were used to guard the grain stores by being the enemy of such animals as mice and especially reptiles which have a very negative press as far as Egyptian religion is concerned the cat therefore moves into the realm of religion at times in Egyptian history the cat was a sacred animal they've been deified and there were temples to cats and there were entire cat cemeteries with thousands of mummified cats this sculpture is is probably one of my favorite Metropolitan cats we make our bronze cat in much the same way that the Egyptians did 3,000 years ago essentially the technological differences are summed up in the heating of the metal the ancient Egyptians had slaves blowing on Blow pipes to heat the charcoal to melt the metal the metal of course melts at the same temperature now as it did [Music] then the Egyptians I think really saw the personality of the cat they did distinguish between the physical cat and the spiritual cat the statues that we see in museums depicting the cat in a sitting position were not intended as animal sculpture but as sacred objects to house the bodies of the Sacred cats they're coffins in the shape of cat figures probably there hasn't been a time since the Egyptians when that Beauty has been so exalted it's the essence of the creature the line of the nose the lines of the ears the eyes something that an awful lot of humans have lost a sense of their own being I think that sums up everything I want to say about cats oh and one last thing I find it very easy to worship a cat they have characteris ICS that I think should be respected economy of [Laughter] motion cleanliness pride and physical well-being we could learn a lot from cats [Music] meum meow meum meow meow meow meow [Music] meow me meow me [Music] meow meow meow meow [Music] [Applause] meow e