Louis Wain was a 19th-century painter whose whimsical drawings of cats were often featured in popular publications of the day. Much like ‘dogs playing poker’, Wain’s works imagined cats anthropomorphized in everyday situations. Largely uninspired work. He is of interest to us, dear reader, because he suffered from late-onset schizophrenia, and this neurological cataclysm was reflected, with eerie prescience, in his work. In time his drawings of cats became more and more abstract, exhibiting colors and patterns totally absent in his prior designs.
It’s fascinating to reflect on the fact that the structure of the mind, one of the most complex constructs known to science, so often results in a persistent stasis we know as consciousness and yet is so susceptible to nearly immeasurable, ineffable change.
