Monday, September 10, 2012

I. Hate. Kittens.


LucyFur's attitude towards Moth and Walter Gomez isn't softening.  At least, not much.  So we have a complicated regime involving cordoning off The Kittens (let's be more accurate: the small cats), separate food bowls in separate places, and lots of quality alone time with Lucy.  What I don't understand is how Rosa Bonheur had so many different animals cohabiting with her: cats and dogs and sheep and cows and goats and lions.  Yes, lions.  But despite the length of time that she must have spend gazing at fur and wool and whiskers, she continued to paint in relatively large, firm brushstrokes.  I was reading today about her encounter and dinner with Ruskin, in which he advised her to take up watercolor painting and fine brushes, so that she could depict every last hair on an animal's head.  Delightfully, she criticized him for having "l'oeil d'un oiseau" - the eye of a bird.  That's the best put down ever of Ruskin's detailism.

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