Here at the Daily Dot, we swap GIF images with each other every morning. Now we’re looping you in. In the Morning GIF, we feature a popular—or just plain cool—GIF we found on Reddit, Canvas, or elsewhere on the Internet.
Cat people: hypersensitive, artistic, suicidal, and psychotic. Or are they?
Sure, it’s easy to write off Aunt Serena and her 18 inbred felines as a bit “out there,” but have you ever seen the allegation in GIF form before? You’re welcome.
Louis Wain was an American illustrator of the Victorian and Edwardian periods who specialized in cat and dog pictures. He had insanity in the family, became increasingly eccentric, and was eventually (and unwillingly) confined to a mental hospital, even while his pictures gained in popularity.
A series of cat drawings he made is now used as a textbook illustration of the progress of mental illness. They may reflect nothing more than his predilection for experimentation in pattern design, something he came by naturally as the son of textile designers.
Nonetheless, at least one of them has caught the eye of the GIF artist at Between Realities, who has done a Two-Face version of a Wain cat and tagged it “acid” among other descriptors.
This GIF, half rational, half irrational, and all 8-bit, harkens back to the last century, while remaining somehow au courant. From the 795 notes, we can conclude we are not the only ones experiencing an existential dilemma while contemplating this bizarre work of art.
