{"id":403049,"date":"2026-04-17T07:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403049\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T07:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:51:07","slug":"the-dogs-gaze-by-thomas-laqueur-review-the-art-of-the-canine-from-velazquez-to-picasso-art-and-design-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403049\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dog\u2019s Gaze by Thomas Laqueur review \u2013 the art of the canine, from Vel\u00e1zquez to Picasso | Art and design books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty-five thousand years ago, in\u00a0the Ard\u00e8che region of France, Paleolithic artists drew a spectacular bestiary on the walls of\u00a0the Chauvet cave. Their focus was apex predators, so there were lots of\u00a0lions, as well as mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses. Dogs<\/a> were nowhere to be seen, and yet in the soft\u00a0sediment on the limestone floor of\u00a0the cave, there are traces of canid pawprints next to human footprints. Two fellow creatures, most likely a\u00a0boy\u00a0and a dog, stood together, about\u00a010,000 years after the art was\u00a0made, looking up at the walls in wonder. Here\u00a0was a moment of shared contemplation, followed perhaps by a\u00a0glance to see the other\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n

In this luminous book, the American cultural historian Thomas Laqueur explores what he calls \u201cthe dog\u2019s gaze\u201d. The dog was the first animal to live companionably with humans, and Laqueur argues that this marks the boundary between nature and culture. It is this threshold status that has, in turn, qualified the dog to play a rich, symbolic part in western art. Just having dogs in a picture \u2013 snuffling for picnic crumbs in Seurat\u2019s La Grande Jatte<\/a> or trooping home in Bruegel the Elder\u2019s Hunters in the Snow<\/a> \u2013 becomes a way for an artist to pack an image with extra resonance and second-order meaning.<\/p>\n

From this starting point Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art, from the shitting cur in Rembrandt\u2019s etching The Good Samaritan<\/a> to the Jeff Koons balloon dog<\/a>, by way of cinema superstar Lassie<\/a>. His special interest, though, is for those places where dogs are engaged in an act of looking. There are two main scenarios. Either the dog is peering deeper into the scene as if to work out what is going on, or else it is turning to look at the viewer, as if to say \u201care you seeing this?\u201d or even \u201ccan you believe it?\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markIn Veronese\u2019s spectacular The Wedding Feast at Cana there are no fewer than six dogs on duty<\/p>\n

A prime example concerns the sleepy mastiff in the bottom right-hand corner of Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s Las Meninas<\/a>, set at the busy Madrid court of Philip IV. In compositional terms the dog\u2019s solid, weighty form provides a grounding for the kerfuffle going on elsewhere: ladies-in-waiting fuss with the Infanta\u2019s dress, the court chamberlain hovers in an open doorway, the king and queen appear in a mirror and Vel\u00e1squez even paints himself into the picture. The mastiff\u2019s droopy-eyed glance out of the frame and towards the viewer is matter-of-fact and just the right side of cynical. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about all the tricks of perspective that are unfolding above my head\u201d, it seems to be saying, \u201cyou and I know which way is up.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the cottage industry of scholarly comment that has sprung up around Las Meninas in the last 350 years, the mastiff rarely gets noticed. One person who did see it, though, was Picasso. In 1957 he produced a series of paintings which riff on Vel\u00e1squez\u2019s masterpiece. In 15 of them the Spanish mastiff has been replaced by Picasso\u2019s beloved dachshund, Lump<\/a>. Faintly ludicrous, Lump romps through this Cubist universe, always looking out of the frame with what Laqueur calls a \u201cbrazen\u201d gaze, as if challenging the viewer to make sense of a scene that does not even pretend to offer any kind of stable meaning.<\/p>\n

By the end of this clever, beautiful book, Laqueur has persuasively made his point that the dog\u2019s function in western art is to provide an entry-point or alter ego for viewers who might otherwise feel overwhelmed or outclassed. In Veronese\u2019s spectacular The Wedding Feast at Cana<\/a>, there are no fewer than six dogs on duty. While the pious ones look on entranced at the miracle unfolding in front of them, there is a little scruff in the corner<\/a> who\u00a0is more interested in the scraps that the tipsy guests might allow to fall to the floor. By this generous gesture, Veronese allows the\u00a0greedy, snuffling viewer to have a\u00a0place at the sacred scene.<\/p>\n

Although the painting was a wild success, Veronese was in for a shock. When, 10 years on, in 1573, he tried to\u00a0put a dog into his interpretation of\u00a0the Last Supper, the Inquisition came down on him for blasphemy. Unperturbed, the artist simply changed the title to The Feast in the House of Levi<\/a> and made sure that the dog stayed in the picture.<\/p>\n

The Dog\u2019s Gaze by Thomas Laqueur is published by Allen Lane (\u00a335). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty-five thousand years ago, in\u00a0the Ard\u00e8che region of France, Paleolithic artists drew a spectacular bestiary on the walls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-403049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}