The human-canine social contract

… Human beings have been looking affectionately at dogs for thousands of years — and dogs have been looking back with the same devotion. That’s the subject of a handsome work of scholarship by Thomas W. Laqueur called The Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History (forthcoming June 2, just before Father’s Day). 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. Of course, these animals are often symbols of loyalty or faithfulness, but further examination shows their iconography to be as rich and varied as the genealogy of a Schnoodle-Pomski-Chuggle-Malshipoo. “Dogs appear in art as part of a social contract,” Laqueur writes. “They see us, and we see them; and we engage with the world together.” … Ron Charles https://open.substack.com/pub/roncharles/p/what-dogs-see-what-we-see-in-them?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios