Thomas W. Laqueur

Luminous ... Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art, from Rembrandt’s etching The Good Samaritan to the Jeff Koons balloon dog, by way of cinema superstar Lassie. His special interest, though, is for those places where dogs are engaged in an act of looking ... 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 ... [it is] a brilliant interpretation of their role at heart

In this charming and lavishly illustrated book, Laqueur sets out how to discover what dogs do for the artists and how they do it … The Dog’s Gaze is an enjoyable romp

[Laqueur] handles an enormous timespan with confidence and deftness of touch. The result is a book that is both erudite and entertaining

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 why.... Striking

A work of immensely humane scholarship ... Laqueur wants to tell us why dogs matter, demystifying his subject while respecting its mystique. [His] writing is erudite and expansive in its range of reference and knowledge, but it is addressed not just to a nonexpert audience but to a larger humane mission

Brilliantly wise and engaging ... a thoughtful, erudite account of dogs in art, from prehistoric petroglyphs to Lucien Freud's whippets, William Wegman's photographs of Welmaraners and a yellow dog in a painting by Kerry James Marshall. Most of the great dogs of art history are here, but the book also contains many paintings I didn't know. A magnificent, generous book

A splendid blend of histories: natural, cultural, and artistic ... The Dog's Gaze is a delight for dog-loving art connoisseurs, and vice versa

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

The Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History is a treasure trove of fascinating material. There could be no more congenial and erudite guide than Professor Laqueur through centuries of artwork from ancient times to 20th-century America and beyond. Each dog portrait is both unique and emblematic: the dog as a companion of aristocrats, and of the common man; the dog at the periphery of human activity, and the dog as a measure of morality; the dog alone, in extremis, a mirror of human loneliness. We see in these richly varied depictions of our most faithful animal companion something of the evolution of our own humanity but most profoundly we see the dog as a creature of infinite beauty, irresistible to generations of artists

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

an enthralling study… Laqueur is a stylish writer who wears his considerable scholarship lightly and the book itself is a visual stunner

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.

Thomas W. Laqueur

Praise for The Dog's Gaze

Luminous ... Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art, from Rembrandt’s etching The Good Samaritan to the Jeff Koons balloon dog, by way of cinema superstar Lassie. His special ...

In this charming and lavishly illustrated book, Laqueur sets out how to discover what dogs do for the artists and how they do it … The Dog’s Gaze is an enjoyable romp

[Laqueur] handles an enormous timespan with confidence and deftness of touch. The result is a book that is both erudite and entertaining

Luminous ... Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art, from Rembrandt’s etching The Good Samaritan to the Jeff Koons balloon dog, by way of cinema superstar Lassie. His special ...

In this charming and lavishly illustrated book, Laqueur sets out how to discover what dogs do for the artists and how they do it … The Dog’s Gaze is an enjoyable romp

[Laqueur] handles an enormous timespan with confidence and deftness of touch. The result is a book that is both erudite and entertaining

Luminous ... Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art, from Rembrandt’s etching The Good Samaritan to the Jeff Koons balloon dog, by way of cinema superstar Lassie. His special ...

In this charming and lavishly illustrated book, Laqueur sets out how to discover what dogs do for the artists and how they do it … The Dog’s Gaze is an enjoyable romp

[Laqueur] handles an enormous timespan with confidence and deftness of touch. The result is a book that is both erudite and entertaining

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