Lagniappe first today:
Louis Wain (1860-1939) was a popular British artist who specialized in drawing anthropomorphic cats and, during the last several decades of his life, developed schizophrenia—or some other mental disorder—so severe he was committed to an institution. Some think his illness was caused by cat-induced infection by Toxoplasma, as he owned cats, which he used as models:
Wain’s cat art is a classic psychology-textbook example of mental deterioration, for as he became more ill, his drawings became weirder. But let’s look first at one of his earlier and more conventional drawings of anthropomorphized cats:
Then, the classic textbook sequence as Wain grew more ill; note the background changing before the cats do:
Very unusual, but there’s a fly in the ointment: we don’t know for sure if these changes are presented in temporal order, reflecting a steady and increasing weirdness with time. The drawings are ordered by weirdness, not by the known time they were produced. But the notion that the cat drawings instantiated a disordered mind became conventional wisdom in psychiatry.
An Atlas Obscura piece from February 22 sheds more light on Wain, casting doubt on the mental-degneration theory of his art:
The first reinvention of Wain happened shortly after his death, in 1939, when Dr. Walter Maclay unearthed eight of his works at a junk shop that would come to be known as the “Famous Series”.
The first two are realistic enough, Disney-ish affairs with big round eyes and fluffy faces. The third cat is recognizable too, but ringed in a rainbow of radiating outlines. The next five drawings descend into organized chaos composed of multi-colored shapes and fractals, as if viewed through a kaleidoscope or laid out on a Turkish carpet.
Maclay was a psychiatrist in London with a penchant for art created by patients diagnosed with mental illness. (He also liked to experiment with mescaline, and invited volunteers from the Surrealist art movement to dose up and draw.) Together with his colleague Dr. Eric Guttmann, he assembled the Guttman-Maclay Collection of psychiatric art. (The collection is now overseen by the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, located on the grounds of Bethlem Royal Hospital, where Wain was a patient for several years.) Maclay believed that art was a window into the patient’s mind; he had Wain’s paintings framed and presented them as the illustrated decline of an artist—from cute to crazy.
Writer Rodney Dale, after a long investigation of Wain, criticized this theory in his 1968 book Louis Wain: The Man who Drew Cats (a good gift for ailurophiles and artists).
Besides mental illness, could there be another explanation for the changing styles? Dale noted that the shifts between representational drawings and interpretative cats could have had another source of inspiration—namely, his family’s textile business. “Louis Wain found joy in wallpaper designs,” said Dale.
And the reinterpretation continues:
More recently, a more expansive view of Wain away from “mental patient” has been gaining currency. In 2012, psychiatrist David O’Flynn gave a gallery talk as part of a Wain exhibition, and declared that the paintings were essentially the work of two men—the artist who created them and the doctor who assembled them and lent them new meaning. But the exact, detailed artworks can hardly be seen as the work of “a man who’s losing his ability to draw or create at all” O’Flynn points out.
But who thought that he lost his ability to draw or create? Up to the end Wain’s drawings were immensely attractive and creative.
I still think the best theory is that the art did reflect the man’s changing psyche, reflected in one item that was unchanging: his love of drawing cats. But you should have a look at Wain’s work, for even if he was insane, the paintings are lovely. They’re also enjoying a resurgence of popularity, as seen in the many tattoos based on Wain’s cats. Here’s a small sample from Google image:
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Here’s a trailer for a new comedy, “Keanu,” featuring a gangsta cat. It opens April 29, If any reader sees it, report back to me. I can’t explain it; you’ll have to watch the two-minute video:
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Finally, over at Science-Based Medicine, the indefatigable Orac takes after the new fad of animal acupuncture in a post called “‘Cat-u-puncture’? What did those poor cats ever do to deserve this?” Here’s “this”:
Orac dismantles a credulous newspaper article about a Brooklyn vet, Dr. Suzy Ryan, who’s doing a land-office business in puncturing ailing felids at $85 per session.
As we know now, acupuncture in humans is a form of quackery; at best, it “works” through the placebo effect. But at least humans have the choice to be duped or not (I use “choice” in the metaphorical sense). Why inflict this woo on a poor animal? As Orac notes, the “evidence” from animals is just as bad:
So we learn from the article that Dr. Ryan has been “feeding pets herbs and sticking tiny needles in their scalps and for a year and a half” and that these are an “increasingly popular option for owners who have exhausted conventional drugs and surgeries.” It’s amazing how, animal or human, the same arguments for quackery prevail. In the article, a systematic review of animal acupuncture that found no compelling evidence that acupuncture should be used for any veterinary condition or disease, but it’s then pointed out that “but a growing number of vets believe they do, and Ryan’s clients say they are converts, too.” Heck, there is even now an American Academy of Veterinary Acupuncture.
And what’s the evidence? Regular readers will know, of course. It’s anecdotes. . .
h/t: Barry, Merilee
that’s animal abuse!! Why is it allowed to continue!!
Comparable to the humans who deny blood or meds to children due to religious quackery.
You stole my very thought! The needle right next to the eye. Poor thing only needs to get a fright and its blinded. Should be illegal
I agree, forcing animals to undergo accupuncture should be banned. But where does one draw the line and who gets to draw it? I once had a neighbor, a pharmacist, morally upright and very religious, probably the sort who’d refuse to fill prescriptions for medications he thought were used for immoral purposes, birth control pills and the like. One day he saw me in the yard giving my cat some catnip and became very censorious — I was drugging my cat and that was wrong. He apparently regarded catnip the equivalent of heroin and I was turning my cat into a drug addict. Up until that time, he’d been quite friendly; after that, his attitude changed markedly and when we saw each other, our communication was reduced to polite nods of acknowledgement. Good riddance meowed my happily drugged cat, who continued to receive her fix whenever she wanted — some grew in the yard and she never abused the drug.
Sub
Those cat drawings are really intriguing. The last drawing doesn’t even resemble a cat anymore, though I’m sure Wain somehow saw a cat in it.
Some people believe that Maurice Ravel suffered from a mental illness and it affected his compositions, especially my favourite Ravel composition, Boléro.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13599-bolero-beautiful-symptom-of-a-terrible-disease/
Eventually he lost his ability to write, and so his ability to compose music. He had exploratory brain surgery, and died five days later.
Maurice Ravel had a cat named Mouni.
(Trying to keep on the cat theme)
I am familiar with the Wain paintings from the “Famous Series”. Back when I was in second grade I was reading at an 11th grade level, and my parents were hard-pressed to keep me supplied with books that challenged me. They subscribed to a series from Time-Life called the Life Science Library. One of the books was titled The Mind, by John Rowan Wilson and the editors of Life, and the chapter on mental disorders featured those cat paintings. According to the captions in that book, as they appear in this post they are in chronological order from right to left and top to bottom, and they were presented as representing the artist’s progressive mental breakdown. The book was published in 1964, so it predates Rodney Dale’s book and later efforts to portray Wain in a more sympathetic light. I don’t remember whether Wain’s name was mentioned there, but I’m headed to the library and will look it up while I’m there.
Oh yeah, snap. Exactly the same. I read this when I was way too young for it, and taking it at face-value it terrified me.
As you say, I am pretty sure the book didn’t mention any criticism of the series of paintings not being what it was claiming to be.
My parents subscribed to those books, too, and I spent many hours with them as a child. Like you, I recognized these paintings from The Mind.
I’m sure there was much that was wrong in the books given our current understanding of the world, but overall they were great books for young and curious minds, and I feel enormous affection for them. It’s really too bad that there is no publisher that is likely to come out with a similar series today.
Yes, I agree. They were a fantastic series even though they are now very dated and even at the time probably not a comprehensive guide to the subjects they covered.
I am pretty sure, however, that it is thanks to them that I grew up with a love of science and science fiction thanks to Planets and Man and Space.
Thanks for the write up on Louis Wain. I’ve always enjoyed his “schizophrenic” series, but the link to the Bethlem Museum of the Mind exposed me to more of his work. His “cute” work is engaging in it’s own right, but I can see how he could have grown bored with that. Schizophrenia may have played some role in the increasing abstraction in his work, but he may also have been experimenting and growing as an artist. I like Rodney Dale’s textile/wallpaper theory. There’s a new book on my reading list!
I am a fan of the Key & Peele show, so adding a cat to the team can only make them better. In the trailer, parts of the movie seem to have been filmed at the same mansion that Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, and John Ashton shot up in Beverly Hills Cop.
That clip is great… any movie with slo-mo kitten action shots has to be worth the price of admission.
That trailer was funny!
Key and Peele can be hilarious but sometimes their half hour shows are”spotty.” I’m finding the same to be true of John Oliver these days.
Keanu Looks to be fantastic.
I remember that Life book as well when I was growing up. It included other examples of art from mentally unstable people, and some images were pretty disturbing.
I meant to reply to Blair above.
The more abstract Wain paintings remind me of some of Vincent Van Gogh work. He suffered from some kind of mental illness as well which seems to have played into his painting. In particular the vividness of color and angularity of line is notable in both artists, although some of Wain’s work seem to be a bit more symmetrical like wall paper pattern.
I don’t know why Wain’s art can’t just be interpreted as evolving from realism to abstraction, if indeed those painting are ordered early to late. Picasso’s art did that, and isn’t it generally the case that artists known for an abstract style began by being more realistic? Examples include: Picasso, etc. (Picasso means he’s the only one I can think of and etc. means there must be others.)
I don’t think there is any evidence that the so-called placebo effect can be accorded to non-human animals. What is plausible is placebo-by-proxy in that the humans may be calmed or satisfied.
But that is a wholly different matter and raises further ethical concerns.
The history of veterinary medicine shows a a century of professional growth from its humble beginnings as mere “horse-docs” to premier science-based medical teamwork, human public health officials (zoonoses/food medicine), research, and even sound ecological advocacy. That many State practice acts allow this quackery is a slap in the face of said progress and a step in the wrong direction.
Mike
Key & Peele are geniuses. I can’t wait to see that movie!
It’s not just acupuncture:
Laser Therapy Doesn’t Work
It is puzzling the Ithaca Times would publish a completely unskeptical piece (“Laser Therapy for Healing Pets”; March 2) on veterinarian Carolyn McMasters’ use of laser therapy in her practice at Briar Patch Veterinary Medicine…
I have always used the term ‘catupuncture’
to describe what my cat does to me. It has
never seemed to have healing properties.
We lost our 20 year old cat last year to old age.For about 2 years, we took her to the vet often for laser acupuncture, no needles, for her arthritis. Her joints were painful and swollen. I don’t know much about it, but it worked and it made a huge difference in her pain level and it made the last couple years of her life much easier. Maggie seemed to really like her sessions at the vet, she was always relaxed and comfortable. My husband even built her a ramp so she could get up on the bed when she could no longer jump. She lived a long and happy life.
I have tried traditional acupuncture for my own back pain and it never did anything but drain my wallet, so won’t ever do that again.