There are many kinds of love worth celebrating this Valentine’s Day. Among the most tender and enduring of them is the love humans share with their pets, a bond that artists through the centuries have immortalized on canvas, paper, and print. From Renaissance portraits to Japanese woodblock prints and modern Indian art, these depictions remind us that affection, loyalty, and empathy often transcend the boundary of species.
Affection Across Time and Cultures
In Auguste Renoir’s Julie Manet (1887), now at the Musée d’Orsay, a young girl rests with a cat in her lap, Renoir’s brush capturing the soft serenity of maternal affection between a child and her pet. Similarly, Swiss artist Félix Vallotton’s Laziness (1896) shows a woman lounging with a cat, the creature curled in easy domestic harmony with its human counterpart.
Fast-forward to Indian modernism, where Chandana Hore’s Woman, Cat (2005, oil on canvas) continues this narrative through introspective intimacy.
Artists have long used pets as symbols of inner life. Edvard Munch’s Self-Portrait with Dogs (1925–26), today housed in Japan’s Pola Museum of Art, portrays companionship as a form of refuge from existential isolation. Similarly, Frida Kahlo’s bond with her Itzcuintli dogs — especially the beloved Mr. Xoloti — finds poignant expression in Itzcuintli Dog With Me (1938). Kahlo’s depiction transforms personal affection into mythic self-portraiture, grounding her pain in devotion and domestic tenderness.
Even earlier, Sofonisba Anguissola’s Three Children With Dog (1590) conveys familial love through gentle canine presence.
In Kalighat art, Bagini Maa by Sonali Chitrakar merges human and feline imagery in a striking portrayal of maternal ferocity and divinity.Bagini Maa is a half-human, half-tigress mythological figure.
Across the seas, Japanese masters Kitagawa Utamaro and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi turned their gaze toward cats as symbols of domestic intimacy and play. In Beauties After a Bath (1800), Utamaro captures two women surprised by a playful kitten, a moment brimming with humor, lightness, and affection. Yoshitoshi’s Tiresome (1888) from his series Thirty-two Customs and Manners of Women shows a quietly endearing scene between woman and cat, rendered with graceful lines and warmth that transcend the bounds of daily life.
Beauties After a Bath, Woodblock Print by Kitagawa Utamaro, 1800 & Tiresome, Woodblock Print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1888
Special Mention: “The Many Lives of the Cat” at MAP Bengaluru
Currently on view at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru (November 8, 2025 – March 29, 2026), the exhibition The Many Lives of the Cat traces exactly this long artistic fascination. From miniature paintings and folk art to matchbox covers and sketches, it explores how the feline has journeyed through Indian visual culture. Dedicated to the late art historian B.N. Goswamy, who chronicled these intriguing creatures in The Indian Cat: Stories, Paintings, Poetry, and Proverbs, the exhibition celebrates the cat’s many symbolic lives from sacred to mischievously mundane.
Cover Image: Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, Henry Ransom Center, Austin, TX, USA
Athmaja Biju is the Editor at Abir Pothi. She is a Translator and Writer working on Visual Culture.
