Why Cats Paint

“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.”

—Leonardo da Vinci – Italian Polymath

Years ago while visiting the St. Louis Art Museum I found a beautiful book in the gift store titled, “Why Cats Paint – A theory of feline aesthetics.”  The book illustrates with wonderful photos, twelve different cats painting with their paws.  I immediately loved this book because I love my cats and I love art.  The authors Heather Busch and Burton Silver put together a creative picture that speaks of the concept of different types of cats and art such as: Charlie – the Peripheral Realist, Ginger – Neo-Synthesis, and Minnie – Abstract Expressionist.  I smile every time I look at the pictures of cats painting their art.    

I am thinking about this book because I was rereading the Origins of Genius by Dean Keith Simonton and I found my handwritten notation of the words Why Cats Paint next to the sentence “the associative processes of artistic geniuses often must reach for the more bizarre associated links.”  The author, Dean, is actually discussing two types of creative geniuses – “the intuitive genius which can generate more possible associative pathways connecting two given concepts, with many of these pathways operating at unconscious levels.”  And the analytical genius, who has a set number of pathways.  The author postulates that the intuitive genius is more often found in the creative arts and the analytical genius in the sciences.    As I think about symbols and the multitude of meanings and associations in each, I realize that one symbol can communicate many different perspectives and thoughts.   These perspectives and thoughts can therefore, communicate multiple “positions” or pathways.  Then I started thinking how our souls are not within time.  Could our souls know something our humanity and consciousness is not aware of when we create symbols or art, but in retrospect reveals a position or pathway?