Thomas W. Laqueur

It is difficult to think of many other books that are at once so brilliant, so wonderfully entertaining, and so moving. I savoured every page and lingered over every illustration. It turns out that a dog’s eye view gives us unique access to some of the deepest longings, needs, and creative powers of our own species. The Dog’s Gaze is full of exuberant insights about our canine friends, about art, and about the human condition

In this beautiful book, Laqueur shows that dogs are everywhere in our lives and our art

A Visual History

Long before the phrase ‘man’s best friend’ became common parlance, dogs were already standing beside us in art as in life. In The Dog’s Gaze, the historian Thomas W. Laqueur invites us to explore why they feature more than any other animal in the ways in which we picture ourselves and our stories. 
 
Dogs have been ubiquitous in the worldmaking of visual artists as far back as the Palaeolithic age. Looking across the western tradition, from Giotto to Goya and Rubens to Rego, Laqueur shows what their presence – as hunting partners, beloved friends and even conduits to the afterlife – reveals about our own ways of seeing and how we want to be remembered. Far from being mere motifs, dogs are an integral and intentional element of the images in which they appear: they provide narrative coherence; they look out and bear witness, often on the artist’s behalf; they illuminate our understanding of morality and melancholy and some, like us, become celebrities. Indeed, as the author shows, dogs in art are our social doppelgängers, our companions in looking and being. 
 
Richly illustrated and lovingly written, The Dog’s Gaze is a unique visual history that examines the shared social history of our two species and offers fresh insights into the human condition through the eyes of our canine companions.

The Dog's Gaze

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Praise for The Dog's Gaze

It is difficult to think of many other books that are at once so brilliant, so wonderfully entertaining, and so moving. I savoured every page and lingered over every illustration. It turns out that a dog’s eye view ...

In this beautiful book, Laqueur shows that dogs are everywhere in our lives and our art

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