I’m still haunted by our ailing, elderly dog’s large, trusting, liquid eyes looking out at us in the moments before her death ... That gaze is one I will never forget, and I turned to a new book on that very subject, Thomas W. Laqueur’s wonderful The Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History, with shivering gratitude ... Laqueur wants to tell us why dogs matter, demystifying his subject while respecting its mystique ... Laqueur’s book has no particular thesis to hobbyhorse for, and yet a unified-field theory of aesthetic dogginess might be distilled from its pages.
A handsome work of scholarship ... In this lavishly illustrated book, filled with color reproductions of paintings and photographs, Laqueur explores how dogs sit, stay, and roll over in Western art — from paintings by Titian, Rembrandt, and Winslow Homer to images from the modern era.
A clever and beautiful survey of dogs in painting, with a brilliant interpretation of their role at its heart ... Luminous ... Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art ... By the end of this clever, beautiful book, Laqueur has persuasively made his point that the dog’s function in western art is to provide an entry-point or alter ego for viewers who might otherwise feel overwhelmed or outclassed.
An intriguing lens on the history of Western art, once the ‘thereness’ becomes apparent. As this book’s lavish illustrations make clear, in art as in life, dogs surround us, but their presence often goes unremarked ... The Dog’s Gaze follows the formula Laqueur has established in previous cultural histories, of mortal remains and masturbation (respectively). Once again, he handles an enormous timespan with confidence and deftness of touch. The result is a book that is both erudite and entertaining.
It was having a child that made me aware of the abundance of dogs in art (nothing like pointing out pups in paintings to get you through a gallery with a fidgety toddler). For the American cultural historian Thomas Laqueur it was having a dog of his own ... In this charming and lavishly illustrated book he sets out to discover what the dogs do for the artists and how they do it ... The Dog’s Gaze is an enjoyable romp, although one that’s crying out for more humour.
A brilliantly wise and engaging book about how dogs have been represented in art and what they represent in life ... Laqueur offers a clear and well-informed account of the genetic and archaeological evidence of domestication, before launching into a thoughtful, erudite account of dogs in art ... The Dog’s Gaze is not flawless: Laqueur’s point sometimes gets mislaid and he puts too much stress on dogs as structural elements.
As long as canines have been an integral feature of the human world, they have been an integral feature of our artistic world ... In The Dog’s Gaze, historian Thomas W Laqueur seeks to answer the question of precisely why ... Although he meanders through myriad artistic eras and canine themes in a distinctly non-chronological order, a vague historical outline of our artistic intimacy with dogs does emerge.
Drawing from a staggering wealth of examples, the author successfully uncovers the overlapping uses and meanings of dogs in art, while interspersing the account with charming asides about artists’ relationships with the dogs that appear in their work. It’s an eye-catching homage to man’s best friend.
