If Your Cat Were a Famous Painting, Which One Would They Be?

Cats have been treating humans like staff for thousands of years. It seems only fair that art history catches up.

We've matched the most common cat personalities with the famous paintings they'd fit into perfectly. Find yours. (Your cat will pretend not to care. Your cat cares.)

The dramatic cat: The Scream, Edvard Munch

Food bowl is half empty? Crisis. Door closed? Betrayal. Someone moved the cushion? Unforgivable.

Munch painted The Scream in 1893, and it remains the most famous image of pure existential panic ever made. Which is exactly how the dramatic cat feels about a slightly delayed dinner.

The permanently unimpressed cat: American Gothic, Grant Wood

Two stern figures, one pitchfork, zero enthusiasm. Grant Wood's 1930 painting is basically a portrait of disapproval.

If your cat greets your new haircut, new sofa and new partner with the same flat stare, this is their painting. They have seen your choices. They are not convinced.

The elegant cat: Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer

The soft light. The glance over the shoulder. The quiet confidence of someone who knows they're beautiful and sees no need to discuss it.

The elegant cat drapes rather than sits. They don't jump on the table, they arrive on it. Vermeer's painting from around 1665 has exactly that energy. (It's also the painting that started our business, but that's a story for another article.)

The chaotic cat: The Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh

Swirling skies, restless energy, everything moving at once. Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in 1889, and it looks exactly like the inside of a cat's head at 3 am.

If your cat does laps of the house at night, attacks invisible enemies and knocks things off shelves while making direct eye contact, they belong here.

The cat who believes the house belongs to them: Napoleon Crossing the Alps, Jacques-Louis David

A rearing horse, a billowing cape, a man pointing confidently into the distance like he owns it. David painted this in 1801, and it's the most self-assured painting in history.

This is the cat who sits in the middle of the bed, in the best chair, on your laptop. Not because it's comfortable. Because it's theirs.

The quietly regal cat: a Raja Ravi Varma portrait

Raja Ravi Varma, one of India's most celebrated painters of the late 1800s, was known for graceful, richly detailed portraits full of fabric, jewels and poise.

Some cats simply have that look: calm, composed, wrapped in their own dignity, possibly lying on your best dupatta. A Ravi Varma-style setting would suit them beautifully.

So, which one is yours?

Most cats are a mix, of course. Elegant by day, chaotic by night, unimpressed at all times. If you have a dog, rabbit or bird feeling left out, we've done the same exercise for every kind of pet.

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