There is a book in Japan called "If the cat disappeared from the world". There is a line in the book, "Cats are amazing. They ignore me normally, but when I'm really in pain, they're there for me."
It’s not just us who can’t live without cats, but also various artists and writers, for whom cats have always been their muse. Borges wrote of the cat, "We seek you everywhere in vain because of unexplainable divine will; you are alone, you are mysterious, farther than the Ganges or the sunset." The poem has since become a manifesto for countless cat lovers. Behind every great creator is a great cat.
1. Louis Wain: He sparked the love of cats and founded the Cat Society.
British artist Louis Wayne is known for his paintings of cats. His cats are always playful and playful, singing, partying, and even dreaming. Louis is also a former chairman and co-founder of the National Cat Society of Great Britain, widely credited with sparking the public's popularity of cats as pets. In Britain in the early 20th century, almost every home had at least one poster of his cats. Louis the cat was inspired by his cat Peter. Shortly after he married his wife, Emily Richardson, who contracted breast cancer, Peter, the stray cat they adopted together, became her spiritual comfort for a while. Later, Louis drew Peter when he was painting, and his wife was very happy, which also made Louis decide to devote his life to painting cats. Louis once described his precious pet: "My career, the trajectory of my initial efforts, and the appearance of my work all came from him." However, Louis's wife eventually died of cancer. Louis suffered from depression after that, and later mental illness. He spent the last years of his life in a mental hospital. Fortunately, there are many cats in the garden there.
2. Edward Weston: Because he likes cats so much, his house has become a "wild cat mountain".
Edward Weston, one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, can be called the "catnip" of photography. There are more than 40 cats living in his manor, so he calls his home "Wild Cat Mountain". Compared with domestic cats, these cats are somewhat wild. They will play freely in the manor and find a place to live on their own, but they also like to be close to humans, and Edward will feed them regularly. Edward named each cat, usually after a close friend, a favorite historical figure or even the chemicals he used to process his photos in the darkroom. Being surrounded by cats gave him a lot of opportunities to take pictures, and as a result, he left a lot of photographic works.
3. Freddie Mercury: Before he died, he made sure all his cats were cared for.
Remember the cats at the beginning of "Bohemian Rhapsody"? There is also one that keeps running on the piano keys. Queen frontman Freddie owned 10 cats in his life. When he was out on tour, he would call home and talk to them, telling them how much he loved them and missed them. All the cats live in his Garden Lodge, where Freddy spends most of his time. He also included cats in his work. On Queen's album Innuendo, he wrote a song called "Delilah," named after his favorite cat. He dedicated his first solo album, Mr. Bad Guy, to his first cat, Jerry, and wrote all the songs himself. Before his death on November 24, 1991, Freddy made sure all the cats were cared for.
4. Sophie Calle: She released a record for the dead cat and 38 musicians wrote songs for it.
French artist Sophie Calle has a cat named Souris, which means "little mouse" in French. Souris lived with Sophie for 17 years until 2014, when Souris passed away. Sophie couldn't come out of the grief of losing her cat for a long time. She was sad because most of the people around her responded indifferently. Why do humans do this, she thought? "If my mother or father died, people would say, 'What a pity, that's unfortunate. But that's not how people would treat the death of a cat.'" "I think it's weird, after all, it's the cat that I get along with day and night, not the parents." She gave the cat a funeral. Her American artist friend Laurie Anderson wrote a song for Souris. This inspired Sophie, who later invited more than thirty well-known musicians to write songs for the cat and composed a commemorative album.
5. Karl Lagerfeld: He hired two "servants" for the cat and left a legacy to the cat.
Chanel artistic director Karl Lagerfeld's cat Choupette may be one of the most famous and richest cats in the world. It has its own wiki entry, more than 200,000 followers on its instagram account, and Choupette even served as a special reporter in the "Carl Daily" founded by Galeries Lafayette in 2014. In the same year, Choupette made 3 million euros through advertising. Karl hired two maids and a chef for Choupette, who played with it and gave it beauty treatments. And he always accompanied Choupette as much as possible. He had dinner with Choupette twice a day, and because Choupette didn't like to eat on the floor, it had its own place on the table. After Galeries Lafayette passed away, Choupette was one of the heirs to his estate.