Gottfried Mind

Gottfried Mind (; 25 September 1768 – 17 November 1814) was a Swiss artist and savant who specialized in drawing. He was widely known as the Raphael of Cats due to his exceptional skill and naturalism in depicting felines.

Early life Gottfried Mind was born in Bern in 1768. His father was a Hungarian joiner and form-cutter who had settled in Worblaufen to work in the paper manufactory of Samuel Emanuel Gruner.

His early exposure to art came through his father's employer, Gruner, who was an art collector (and who notably sold a blank sketchbook to J. M. W. Turner during the latter's 1802 visit to Bern). A German artist named Legel, who was staying at Gruner's house, allowed the young Mind to observe him work and study Gruner's collection of prints, including the animal engravings of Johann Elias Ridinger. Mind attempted to copy these works, showing a particular preference for lions, and eventually began drawing sheep, goats, and cats from nature. Mind's father initially disapproved of drawing on paper, encouraging his son to work with wood instead. Mind subsequently became adept at carving wooden animals, which became popular local decorations.

Work and legacy Following Freudenberger's death in 1801, Mind remained employed by his widow, who recognized the commercial value of his independent work. Though he often exhibited a gruff demeanor toward human visitors, his connection to his subjects was profound. Decades later, Mind's work experienced a resurgence in popularity among French artists and intellectuals when the critic Champfleury featured Mind's drawings in his 1869 book Les chats: Histoire, moeurs, observations, anecdotes. This publication, advertised with a poster by Édouard Manet, helped cement Mind's status within a 19th-century "cult of the cat" that included literary figures like Charles Baudelaire.

Medical and psychiatric historical context Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Mind's life and condition became a subject of interest in the developing fields of psychiatry and neurology. Modern retrospective diagnoses often classify him as an autistic savant, prominently featuring him in foundational texts on the subject.

During his own era and the subsequent century, however, his condition was viewed through the medical lens of his time. George Fairholme, who compiled Mind's works into the 1831 collection Mindiana, characterized him as a "cretin imbecile" who was affected by a goiter at an early age.

Later psychiatric theorists, including William W. Ireland and Alfred Tredgold, utilized Mind's biography as a primary case study. Tredgold discussed Mind in his 1908 work Mental Deficiency (Amentia), while Ireland argued that Mind's case proved that a "constructive or mechanical turn is more frequently preserved amongst idiots than any other gift," comparing his innate predisposition for art to the musical prodigies of Mozart and Handel.

Death In late 1813, Mind began suffering from "an increasing disorder in the breast" (described in contemporary accounts as "dropsy in the chest") which left him unable to exert himself.