Russian Artist Adds Her Fat Cat Zarathustra To Iconic Paintings
A few years ago, Russian artist Svetlana Petrova started re-creating the most iconic paintings in art history by adding her beloved fat ginger cat Zarathustra to them.
“I lost my mother in 2008 and she left me Zarathustra. I got horrible depression after her death and for two years I was unable to do something creative,” recalls Petrova to BBC. “I’ve had cats before and included them in my work, like playing in theatre shows and I’ve made costumes for them. But I thought, ‘What can I do with Zarathustra, because my mother spoilt him and he’s so fat’.“
The clever improvements on the classic masterpieces in the “Fat Cat Art” project became extremely popular two years ago among cat lovers, and now the series will be exhibited live. So, if you’re anywhere in the UK, go visit Svetlana and Zarathustra’s exhibition “Russian Extremes – From Icons to I-Cats” at the Barn at Stonehill in Oxfordshire, which will be open until June 5, 2014.
Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (1503-1506)
Bogatyrs (Heroes) by Victor Vasnetsov (1898)
Olympia by Édouard Manet (1863)
Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci (1489–1490)
The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí (1931)
Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix (1830)
The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo (1511-1512)
The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1486)
Whistler’s Mother by James McNeill Whistler (1871)
Twelfth Night (The King Drinks) by David Teniers (1634-1640)
The Kitchen Maid by Johannes Vermeer (1657–1658)
The Venus of Urbino by Titian (1538)
American Gothic by Grant Wood (1930)
Escaping Criticism by Pere Borrell del Caso (1874)
Got wisdom to pour?
very good, super!
Now we know why the Mona Lisa is smiling…and of course she got the Michelangelo wrong…the cat of course is God.
The fat cat is living it large indeed!
Oh is it now ?
Yes Mr Jekyll, this little kitty has been to more places than I have! :-)