Rating: 
Summary: Purfect Prank
Review: I bought a copy of this book for myself and a copy for a friend. I'm not going to give the copy to my friend and I don't really know what to do with the one I have. It's not because I'm offended at the idea of people painting cats. I just feel ripped off. I bought the book because it was quirky and pretty. While the pictures are still lovely, apparently they're all done in photoshop. There is no disclaimer on the book anywhere, and while I'm sort of glad that people aren't really painting cats, I can mock up pictures of painted cats in photoshop all on my own. This book isn't an oddity of human nature, it's a fraud that doesn't have the decency to let you know that. You have to first buy it and then figure it out for yourself. I want my money back.
Rating: 
Summary: Subversively funny
Review: I made the mistake of reading this book out on my deck, and I laughed out loud so often that the neighbors probably thought I finally lost it. As with the best humor, the book is done with an absolutely straight face (well, except for the goofy portraits of the "artists" which beign each chapter). So straight, in fact, that I've seen at least two columnists who were taken in by it and reviewed it as a serious work. The level of detail is amazing: not just in the cat photos (which are wonderful) but in footnotes ("Stace, P. Feline Kinetic Design as Installation ARt, 1999-2001 Journal of Applied Animal Aesthetics, Vol. VII, 2001), captions (a Santa-painted cat: "...she makes us painfully aware of the continuing unhealthy santaization of winter solstice symbolism with its stupefying illusion of male as dominant gift giver"). "Why Paint Cats" works on a lot of levels - as a skewering of art criticism, a gentle poke at cat lovers and Animal Rights activists, and best of all, as good, silly fun.
Rating: 
Summary: It's sooo wrong, but you can't stop looking at it.
Review: I saw this book at my daughter's guitar lesson studio. I picked it up and just couldn't stop looking at the pictures. Who the heck would do this to their beloved pet--even a cat? Some are just plain WRONG--those with the painted rear ends and the sexy bustieres. What's amazing about this book is that the authors treat the subject matter in a very straight way--they cover it as ART. It makes it even more funny. I bought this book as a gift for a cat lover and she is crazy about it.
Rating:
Summary: Authors need to make a statement here
Review: I think with all the confusion here it is hard to give a proper review- maybe some stars for a spoof but should there be any if a lack of a responsible disclaimer is endangering the very cats that the lover's of this book profess to also love?
Please Burton Silver, Heather Busch if you are out there- set the record straight for those who might paint a cat!
Rating:
Summary: Wow ! Everyone who sees our copy of this book wants it !
Review: My wife and I borrowed a copy of this book from her friend. Since then, we have bought our own copy, and FOUR of our friends have purchased the book after seeing ours! What beautiful photography and wonderful designs. This book, for most people, is a MUST HAVE!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful & Hysterical
Review: Silver and Busch have done it again! Their first book, "Why Cats Paint," is the most hysterical art book I've ever seen and makes me chuckle to think about it. "Why Paint Cats" continues the put-on tradition even more, with the deadly serious tone of a true art book, and the hysterical premise of painting cats strange colors and designs. Yet as a book of cat photos, it is truly beautiful. I don't know how they actually got the great patterns on these cats (I suspect they are only in the photos), but the the effects are spectacular. This is a laugh-out-loud book for any art or cat fancier. The dead-pan seriousness, with its subtle underlying humor, extends even to the "Selected Bibliography," which includes: Rathbone, P. 2001, The Tenth Life. The Preservation and Display of Our Painted-But-Departed Feline Companions. Taxidermy Press, Edinburgh. I dare anyone to find the above title on www.Amazon.com! This book is a hoot from beginning to end. Enjoy! Roz
Rating:
Summary: Outrageously creative body painting on cats
Review: The reviewer's first reaction was actually a negative one, considering that cats probably would not volunteer to participate as canvasses in this decorative display of human creativity. The authors explain that cats have been painted in India and Japan for centuries, and that there are petting rituals for preparing them to participate in this experience. In Ayuba, an independent territory of Botswana in Africa, cat faces are ritually painted to ward off evil spirits. A sign from the cat is required prior to commencing with the painting.
In contemporary western countries, this is now a fad. The results are astoundingly beautiful.
The reviewer was still left wondering about what cats' rights advocates would say, and still hesitant to recommend a book that appeared to be potentially unfriendly to felines, until his daughter showed him a book of parallel beautiful examples of human body painting:
Roberto Edwards (Photographer), Painted Bodies: By Forty-Five Chilean Artists, Abbeville Press 1996
Rating:
Summary: Great Coffee Table Book
Review: This is a great coffee table book. The cover draws you to it because you are wondering "Why does that cat look like a butterfly?" Then you open it and there are cats that look like pianos, clowns, fish, you name it! This is a fun book to look at. We have lent this book to so many people. At first they are like "no way" but then they look at it and have to borrow it. You can't just look at one page, you are so captivated that before you know it you are through the whole book! This is definitely a fun book to own, or at least borrow from someone. I recommend it along with "Why Cats Paint" by the same author. This is fun, even for cat lovers (the painting isn't cruel and it doesn't hurt the cats). I really recommend this book! ENJOY!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Delightful send-up of the arts establishment
Review: This is really funny - on so many levels. Some of these cats are really gorgeous, some are funny, some are silly, some are bizarre.
But of course the best part of the book is the way it skewers some of the pretentions of the art establishment, adapting the jargon of the gallery world to this odd flight of fancy.
Love this: ". . . the cat's purple-colored tail becomes genitally implicated in what appears to be a quite unncircumscribed discussion of male assertiveness in the context of post-reunification Germany."
Or this: "This work is perhaps best understood in terms of Wittgenstein's concept of "seeing as", for unlike other peintures chat, Weiman's art is not based on any complacent liberalization that seeks to conceal the hunter-prey dichotomy."
Rating:
Summary: Funny and Edgy
Review: Warning: This book is not for people who take themselves (or anything else) too seriously. I love "Why Paint Cats." The photography and concepts are incredibly well executed and clever. The commentary and 'interviews' are the best part of the work, poking fun at everyone involved, especially art critics (fortunately). The authors have the stuffy self-importance of the critical world down perfectly, right down to the 'references', for example: "The artist's depiction of a green-eyed purple cat as a metaphor for monster...draws a clear parallel between the socially noxious effects of television and the environmentally destructive consequences of feline-avian conflict in the urban context," - D. Koplos, The Green-Eyed One-Tailed Spying Purple Parrot Eater. L.A. Art Times, 2001. The work is startlingly original and can be read on several levels. I heartily recommend it in every way.
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