According to Matthew Wilson, a new exhibition investigates the mysterious bond between humans and hounds.
The human/hound bond is profound, as any mutt owner will attest. What accounts for this unique bond? The new exhibition Portraits of Dogs: from Gainsborough to Hockney at the Wallace Collection in London suggests that an answer can be found in visual art.
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Xavier Bray, the exhibition’s curator, concurs. “The way our relationship with dogs – that inexplicable, loving bond – transgresses into art history is fascinating, and a greater reflection of society,” he says to BBC Culture.
Changing attitudes towards dogs have been captured in art throughout history as societies have evolved. Art from various eras focuses on specific characteristics of our four-legged friends, such as empathy, faithfulness, super-acute senses, and intelligence. However, there is a hint at a deeper symbolic meaning of dogs that enters a much more esoteric and metaphysical realm.
One of the most endearing characteristics of dogs is their apparent empathy for human emotions. David Hockney’s Dog Painting 30 captures this tenderly with a single beady eye holding our gaze. It is one of 40 paintings of Stanley and Boodgie, the artist’s pet dachshunds. The artist’s close friend Henry Geldzahler’s death inspired the series. “I desperately wanted to paint something loving,” Hockney has said. “I felt such a loss of love that I needed to deal with it somehow… To me, they’re like little people. The topic wasn’t dogs, but my affection for them.”
Reflecting our emotions
To see dogs as mirrors of human emotions is an artistic trope that dates back centuries. Dogs are thought to have been domesticated around 14,000 years ago, and the symbiotic relationship between hounds and humans has even been depicted in cave paintings. The 18th century was a golden age for anthropomorphizing mutts. After marital squabbles, the renowned portraitist Thomas Gainsborough wrote letters to his wife, which were delivered and “signed” by his favourite dog, and even hung a portrait of his two favourite pups above his fireplace (Tristram and Fox, 1775-85). It reflects a current way of thinking known as the cult of sensibility. Alexander Collins, another of the exhibition’s curators, tells BBC Culture: “It is very much part of an 18th-century philosophical debate about the nature of animals and whether they are receptive and emotionally intelligent. It’s in the spirit of the age to respect animals, understand their intelligence, and give them identities.”
Another aspect of the canine psyche that has been consistently validated in art is faithfulness. This is evident in the 19th-century paintings of British painter Edwin Landseer. Queen Victoria’s pet dogs, Hector, Nero, and Dash with the Parrot Lory (1838), are depicted as the epitome of steadfastness, in contrast to the greedy parrot below them, who absentmindedly spills nutshells all over the floor. The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner (c 1837) by Landseer expands on the theme of loyalty, depicting a hound devotedly resting on her master’s coffin with doleful, skygazing eyes.
He was drawing on an age-old symbolism when he used a dog to represent the pinnacle of fidelity. Dogs were depicted as devotional icons in ancient Greek funerary monuments, mourning their deceased masters. The very first books that catalogued symbols in art (such as Andrea Alciato’s Emblemata of 1531 and Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia of 1593) depicted dogs as symbols of loyalty during the Renaissance.
A snugly sleeping pup has been inserted in Titian’s Venus of Urbino for precisely this reason, and marriage portraits from the Renaissance onwards frequently do the same. The artist Cosimo Rosselli inserted faithful hounds into religious scenes in the Sistine Chapel, and tombs in mediaeval churches frequently have dogs lying at the feet of the deceased. Even Lucien Freud’s Pluto (1988), a highlight of the Wallace Collection exhibition, reinforces the same point. From above, you can imagine Freud sketching the puppy as it sleeps at his feet. Despite his vehement opposition to symbolism in his art, Freud’s portraits always show dogs in close proximity to human sitters, confirming their genetic proclivity for allegiance.
Super senses
Looking through art history reveals how impressed humanity has been with canine superpowers such as smell, hearing, strength, and endurance. The first “dog portraits” were created to celebrate hunting dogs’ impressive sensory skills, and they proudly included the names of particularly skilled mutts. In 1701 King Louis XIV of France commissioned these to decorate his country retreat, the Chateau de Marly. This new genre was especially popular in England, where artists like George Stubbs achieved new levels of skill. In the exhibition, Stubbs’ Ringwood, A Brocklesby Foxhound (1792) stands out, with the proud pup posing like a model and offering his best blue steel gaze.
Less naturally urbane, but possibly more endearing, is Brizo (1864), Rosa Bonheur’s pet in the nineteenth century. Brizo was a French Otterhound, a breed with exceptional swimming ability and a double coat for warmth. Her name was inspired by an ancient Greek goddess who was worshipped at Delos and was said to protect sailors and fishermen.
Portrait of Fanny, A Favorite Dog (1822) by James Ward provides yet another perspective on the human obsession with hounds: their perceived intelligence. After Fanny’s death in 1820, her owner, the eminent British architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837), commissioned this portrait. Soane was fond of Fanny, according to Bray. “What a lucky dog to have a Soane tomb! He couldn’t stop himself from placing Fanny in what appears to be the Parthenon ruins in Athens. So not only are we eulogising him, but we’re also putting him in a nice classical context.” It’s as if he saw Fanny as a wise fellow antiquarian.
In art history, dogs have long been associated with intellectual companionship. This can be traced back to the early Renaissance poet and scholar Petrarch (1304-1374), who wrote a poem praising the bravery, loyalty, and intelligence of his pet dog. Petrarch’s dog was frequently depicted at his feet in portraits. This convention was popularised in some of the most widely distributed images of the Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer’s etchings (1471-1528). The scholarly Jerome has his faithful hound in Saint Jerome in His Study (1514). A frustrated thinker is accompanied by a dog in Melencolia I, which was created the same year.