How Religion Influenced Medieval Artists to Refuse to Paint Cats in Their True Adorable Likenesses

In a lissome report for Cheddar, host Ali Larkin digs into why artists of the Medieval era refused to paint cats in true likeness. While it could be said that a poorly toilet trained cat might have turned a painter against the feline species as a whole, the real reason behind these deliberately bad representations is due to the religious beliefs of the time.

It wasn’t actually bad artists that turned cats into tiny little gremlins. There’s one main reason why. It’s the Catholic Church. Before Christianity was widespread in Europe, cats were well-loved by the ancient Greeks Romans and Egyptians and were often considered divine in their respective religions cats were also mainly associated with the feminine. …Obviously this wasn’t going to fly with the Christians.