"The White Cat" by Arthur Rigden Read

I've been posting a lot of woodcuts and wood engravings that are very complicated, with lots of little details. So I decided I needed a breather. A little air to move around in. And I found it in this simple print of a cat by Arthur Read. The way the bottom of the tail is cropped, and the excess amount of space above the cat reminds me of snapshots. How amateur photographers almost always shoot the photo from their own eye level, and therefore end up cutting off their subjects at the feet while leaving so much extra space above their heads. Here, of course, the cropping is intentional. The cat seems weighted to the black surface, while the sunshine-colored wall behind him seems cheery and open, despite the cat's pensive expression. Cats always seem pensive.