In the painting, the bird only plays a minor role; the undisputed main character is the cat, whose face overwhelmingly dominates the format.

His facial expression is characterized by a frightening alertness, shown in the open eyes with the typical vertical pupils of the cats, but also by his calmness.

So simple pointed oval shapes for the eyes, triangles for the nose, ears and cat's mouth are characteristic of this painting.

Both animals belong to the painters creatures of his knowledge, imagination for forms and his suggestive simplified sign language, which he experienced and developed after a trip to Tunis, in 1914, and later as a Bauhaus teacher.

[8][9][10][11] The American art historian William Rubin interprets Cat and Bird from the perspective of Gestalt psychology and mentions the small formats of Klee's paintings.

[12] Klee donated the painting to Alfred Flechtheim's gallery in Berlin in 1929, and it was loaned to the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, in 1930.