The Dog's Gaze
A Visual History
Published on 7. May 2026
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-0-241-72908-3 (ISBN)
Description
What do dogs do in art? A dazzlingly original cultural history from the Cundill Prize-winning historian
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 doppelgaengers, 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.
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 doppelgaengers, 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.
Reviews / Votes
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 -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * 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 -- Chloe Ashby * The Times * [Laqueur] handles an enormous timespan with confidence and deftness of touch. The result is a book that is both erudite and entertaining -- Kirsten Tambling * Literary Review * 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 -- Adam Gopkin * The New Yorker * 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 -- Luka Ivan Jukic * Financial Times * 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 -- Robert Hanks * Apollo Magazine * superbly illustrated and beautifully written ... [full of] countless magical and erudite insights ... The Dog's Gaze is the kind of volume you'll return to again and again, learning something new each time. Laqueur guides us through the history of art and the relationship between dogs and humans [with] deep knowledge, energised by the [his] obvious love for our four- legged friends . -- Bel Mooney * Mail on Sunday * A splendid blend of histories: natural, cultural, and artistic ... The Dog's Gaze is a delight for dog-loving art connoisseurs, and vice versa * Kirkus Reviews * 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 -- Stephen Greenblatt Magnificently illustrated ... The Dog's Gaze provides an answer to the eternal question of the bond between man and dog ... [it] is more than an upmarket book of dog pictures: It is a meditation, through art, on our closest relationship with another species. French critical theory is usually a barrier to understanding the world, but Laqueur, a fluent writer, uses the concept of "the gaze" to good effect, [showing how dogs are] part of our subjective world in the way that no other creature can ever be -- Adrian Wooldridge * Bloomberg *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
918 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-72908-3 (9780241729083)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Thomas W. Laqueur is the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. An internationally renowned cultural historian, he has published books on topics ranging from working class religion and education during the industrial revolution to the history of sexuality and the body. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and recipient of the 2007 Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities Award and the 2016 Cundill Prize for Historical Literature. His work has been translated into twenty languages.