Etude des Chats 

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen made this study of cats with crayon on paper, probably in France around the turn of the 20th century. It's a naturalistic drawing, not a painting, so Steinlen isn't working in the grand traditions of academic art. Instead, he's documenting the everyday world around him. Like many artists of his generation, Steinlen worked as an illustrator, and he had strong socialist convictions. He made many posters, drawings, and prints for radical magazines and charities, and his imagery often featured the lives of ordinary Parisians. The fluid lines and tonal modeling owe a debt to the Japanese prints that were so popular at the time. But the democratic spirit is all Steinlen's own. To understand his art better, we can turn to sources such as prints in magazines, posters and other forms of popular imagery. These provide the wider social context in which his art took shape. It helps us see how his art offered a commentary on the institutions of his time.