The Kaleidoscope Cats of Louis Wain

Louis William Wain was an artist who had earned admiration and national fame for creating anthropomorphic domestic cats, often portrayed in a very playful cartoon style. However, if you were ever to look into Wain's work on most places online, the first results would not be a scene of friendly looking animals having a tea party or picnic, but instead you find yourself in a picture book straight out of Alice in Wonderland. A psychedelic scene of feline faces warping in geometric patterns and tendrils of bright colours. The more you seek an explanation to these weird and wonderful works of art, the more a tragic tale unravels, exposing a gentle soul with a fractured mind, brought on by mental illness and losing those closest to him. This is also a very slight debunking video on the topic surrounding schizophrenia being an attribute to his work. It still remains clouded in mystery as to what exact mental condition Louis Wain burdened, but it's still undoubtedly clear that his work would continue to fascinate observers for many years. His art has featured for case studies and textbooks in Psychology, and even the famous writer H G Wells would look back on his work saying "He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves." As an art fan who particularly favours outsider art that beautifully displays the complexity of the human mind, I became instantly fascinated in Louis Wain's work. And today, I am very excited to share his story to you, that reveals the fragile mind of a creative genius, that was so very often misunderstood. And whom, whether intentionally or not, defined a completely unique style in anthropomorphic animal art. This is the story and artwork of Louis Wain.

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Sources:
https://illustrationchronicles.com/cu...

https://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/314...

https://www.thegreatcat.org/cats-19th...