Review of Thomas Laqueur’s A Dog’s View – The Art of Dogs, from Velázquez to Picasso | Art and design books

TThirty-five thousand years ago, in the Ardèche region of France, Paleolithic artists painted a stunning painting of animals on the walls of Chauvet Cave. Their focus was on predators, so there were lots of lions, as well as mammoths and woolly rhinos. Dogs were nowhere to be seen, however, in the soft deposits on the limestone floor of the cave, traces of dog footprints lie next to human footprints. Two creatures, most likely a boy and a dog, stood together, some 10,000 years after the art was made, and looked at the walls in wonder. This was a moment of shared contemplation, perhaps followed by a glance to see the other’s reaction.

In this illuminating book, American cultural historian Thomas LaCour explores what he calls the “dog gaze.” The dog was the first animal to live in the company of humans, and Laqueur sees this as the dividing line between nature and culture. This threshold state is what qualified the dog, in turn, to play a rich symbolic role in Western art. The mere presence of dogs in an image—such as searching for picnic crumbs in La Grande Jatte in Seurat, or returning home in Bruegel the Elder’s Hunters in the Snow—becomes a way for the artist to fill the image with additional resonance and second-order meaning.

From this starting point, Laqueur takes us on a fascinating pictorial tour of dogs in art, from Rembrandt’s Good Samaritan etching to Jeff Koons’ balloon dog, through to the movie star Lassie. However, his special interest is in those places where dogs are involved in the search process. There are two main scenarios. Either the dog looks deeper into the scene as if trying to figure out what’s going on, or he turns to look at the viewer, as if to say “Do you see this?” Or even “Can you believe it?”

A prime example is the sleeping mastiff in the lower right corner of Velázquez’s Las Meninas, which is located in the crowded court of Philip IV in Madrid. Compositionally, the dog’s solid, heavy figure provides a basis for the quarrel taking place elsewhere: the commotion of ladies-in-waiting with the infanta’s dress, a court servant hovering in an open doorway, the king and queen appearing in the mirror, and Velázquez even drawing himself in the picture. The mastiff’s gaze drooping out of the frame and towards the viewer is matter-of-fact and just the right side of irony. “Don’t worry about all the perspective tricks unfolding above my head,” he seems to be saying: “You and I know which way to go.”

In the cottage industry of scholarly commentary that has sprung up about Las Meninas over the past 350 years, the mastiff is rarely noticed. But the only person who saw it was Picasso. In 1957 he produced a series of paintings that imitate Velázquez’s masterpiece. In 15 of them, Picasso’s beloved Spanish dachshund, Lamb, was replaced. Somewhat ironically, Lamb wanders through this Cubist universe, always looking out of the frame with what Laqueur calls an “impudent” gaze, as if challenging the viewer to make sense of a scene that does not even pretend to offer any kind of fixed meaning.

By the end of this beautiful and intelligent book, Laqueur has made the compelling point that the function of the dog in Western art is to provide an entry point or alter ego for viewers who might otherwise feel overwhelmed or outclassed. In Veronese’s stunning film The Wedding Feast at Cana, no fewer than six dogs are on duty. While the devout look on in amazement at the miracle unfolding before them, there is a little scruff in the corner who is more concerned with the scraps that drunken guests might let fall to the floor. With this generous gesture, Veronese allows the greedy, thirsty spectator to have a place in the sacred spectacle.

Although the painting was a huge success, Veronese was in for a shock. When, ten years later, in 1573, he attempted to include a dog in his interpretation of the Last Supper, the Inquisition accused him of blasphemy. The artist simply changed the title to “The Feast at Levi’s House” and made sure the dog remained in the picture.