The Best and Worst Cats in the History of Art; Proof of Secret Society?

I recently visited Paris, where I ate lots of Nutella and, even more importantly, saw what I believe to be both the best and worst cat representations in the History of Art. (Or, the History of Art That I Have Seen. But let's not quibble.)

Veronese's sumptuous Wedding at Cana at the Louvre (which puts up a great fight across the room from that smug attention hog Mona Lisa), one of my all-time favorite pictures, features such a realistic cat that I can't help but tag Veronese as a cat lover. That cat is playing with that urn just like a cat would!

Meanwhile over at the Musee D'Orsay, Henri Rousseau's Madame M. poses with that hideous freak in the lower right. Forget Madame M's enormous hands and displaced shoulders -- what about that freaky kitty? And yet, as with all things Rousseau, it is an appealing and unforgettable freak, and points for the ball of string. He was playing with his ball of string, then looked up and saw a STARTLING TERROR!

Both master cats are in the lower right hand corner of their paintings; coincidence? Both are playing, attempting to destroy the string and urn (of the world? Of the Vatican?). The Madame extends all but her middle finger toward the cat. The water that has just been turned into wine at the feast is near the cat. Are these kittyphilic signs intentionally coded into the paintings by the painters? Could Veronese and Rousseau have been members of a secret pan-generational Opus Felis organization? Quick, call Dan Brown!!

"Picnic at Hanging Rock": Disappearing Schoolgirls, Serenaded by the Pan Flute (Master Thereof)

I watched the most excellent and unusual Peter Weir 1975 suspense film "Picnic at Hanging Rock"; it's worth checking not least for its rather bizarre origin as a novel, and the missing last book chapter that "explained" everything but was wisely left out. Good on ya, IFC channel, for scheduling this one.

The action (such as it is -- girls go on picnic, climb rock, disappear) starts in an Australian girl's boarding school in 1900. The genius of this film is that the atmosphere of suspense and dread comes from the pre-Raphaelite beauty and dreaminess of these girls and their upright Victorian minders and the rugged working men lurking nearby; the girls with their fluttering white dresses and pressed flowers and invocations to St Valentine barely concealing raging suppressed passions and merciless personal denials; the teachers with their leonine updos and perfect posture and desperate attempts to stick a firm finger in the dyke of sexual awakening. (No pun intended; seriously, what do you take me for? You need a cold shower.)

Best of all, the dreamiest scenes are scored by the pan flute stylings of the Master himself, Gheorghe Zamfir. I knew there was something menacing about that guy.