In Bada Shanren's painting, Cat and Rock, dated 1696, a sleeping cat on the rock is vividly depicted by simple brush lines. The drawing of this cat looks casual, yet through all the cat images that Bada had produced, this cat is the result of repetitive practice and different attempts of the artist. Bada painted cats as a subject for the first time in 1684, and his extant paintings show his continuing interest in this subject over years. At the beginning, he was interested in practicing dynamic states of small animals, and therefore his cat in 1684 is in the motion of leaping. Later, however, Bada was more fascinated with the still form of a cat and depicted it sleeping. By 1692, Bada had already developed the composition of small animals on rock, which would frequently appear in his work from then. A cat on rock is one of the earliest examples of such composition. From 1694 on, Bada practiced cat images with the attempt of making its facial features more abstract; a cat image in 1695 shows that he had been successful in doing so. The practice and experiment led to the most successfully depicted cat in the 1696 Cat and Rock, in which Bada casually created the sleeping cat on the rock, endowing a personality with dignity to it, within only a few brush strokes. Bada Shanren's iconic sleeping cat was then born.

Authors:
Xiao Sheng, Arizona State University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Xiao Sheng is a University Doctoral Student at Arizona State University, United States

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