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The Dog's Gaze: A Visual History
What do dogs do in art?
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 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.
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 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.
400 pages, Hardcover
Published June 2, 2026
About the author
Thomas W. Laqueur
10 books81 followersThomas W. Laqueur is an American historian, sexologist and writer.
He is the author of Solitary Sex : A Cultural History of Masturbation and Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud as well as many articles and reviews. He is the winner of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award and is Professor of History at the University of California.
He is the author of Solitary Sex : A Cultural History of Masturbation and Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud as well as many articles and reviews. He is the winner of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award and is Professor of History at the University of California.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 11, 2025
There are some cats, cattle, and horses scattered across the history Western art, but overwhelmingly there are dogs. What are they doing there, and what do they tell us of the stories we tell about ourselves and our lives?
Tom Laqueur's startlingly original cultural history draws our attention to the presence and function of the dogs featured in artworks from prehistoric caves to Caillebotte, from Rubens to Rego and Giotto to Giacometti, showing us how they serve as our social doppelgängers.This is an intellectually rigorous work from one of the world's most celebrated historians, but it's also very charming – and loads of fun!
Highly recommended for dogs lovers, lovers of art and social history, and all those in between and beyond.
Tom Laqueur's startlingly original cultural history draws our attention to the presence and function of the dogs featured in artworks from prehistoric caves to Caillebotte, from Rubens to Rego and Giotto to Giacometti, showing us how they serve as our social doppelgängers.This is an intellectually rigorous work from one of the world's most celebrated historians, but it's also very charming – and loads of fun!
Highly recommended for dogs lovers, lovers of art and social history, and all those in between and beyond.
July 6, 2026
This was all good until the section on vivisection, which I had to skip over. Who wants to see artistic renderings of animal torture?!
July 28, 2026
4.5 for ability to engage - but that's probably more on me. The book is dense and chock-full, but more importantly, it is thoughtful, comprehensive, impressively knowledgeable, and beautiful in its presentation and reproduction of art prints. I never noticed how often dogs appear in paintings! Even some of the most famous and familiar (Seurat's Sunday Afternoon.... for example) made me look in a different way. "...dogs appear in art as part of the social contract; they see us, and we see them; and we engage with the world together." (59) "...they organize the visual space of an image and the ways we are asked to respond to it. They point to things, they tell us where to look, they make connections both between things in the image and gesture to us as observers of the image....Dogs are also there because of the emotional work they do: they humanize humans." (60) Presented thematically, with a subset of chronology, Laquer gives a gloss over of human history with canines, (20,000-25,000 years ago),then does deep analysis of what dogs' presence in art symbolizes, how the painting's composition is devised around that presence, the emotional connection between the painting's subjects, how the dog was an agent of change in modern art, dogs and the moral conscience (tough chapter!), and a brief look at dogs in popular culture as portrayed artistically (Lassie, Nipper). Throughout, Laquer is thorough, instructional, and so interesting! Dog lovers will have a whole new appreciation and articulation for canine companions. Specific to the title, where the dog is looking in the artwork (at the audience, at its owner, at the action) is significant both for the work's meaning and for the relationship to humans. Some examples of the information and reflection put forth: "...the dog is the creature above all others that saves us as individuals and as a species from loneliness ... [and] live in the rhythms of human time and in tune with what we are doing." (43) Some of the fascinating, famous works that I enjoyed: Giotto's "Dream of Joachim" (c. 1305), Veronese's "Adoration of the Magi" (1571), Velazquez's "Las Meninas" (c. 1656) Renoir's "Madame Georges Chapentier and her Children" (1878) J.M.W. Turner's "Dawn After the Wreck" (1841) and so many others. Dogs represent loyalty, faith, (3 Saints! Francis, Dominic and Roch), patience, and compassion; dogs bear witness. "Our cross-species intimacy in daily life and especially in the intimacy of the gaze enfold the dog in the narratives we tell about ourselves....In all their ubiquity, dogs are always entering our frame." (349)
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
More interesting than I expected. It’s basically a deep dive into how dogs show up in art throughout history, and once you start noticing them, you realize they’re everywhere.
I loved how it made me look at paintings differently. The dogs aren’t just random background details, they actually add meaning, emotion, and sometimes even tell their own little story. Super cool concept.
It did get a bit dense and academic in parts, which slowed me down a little, but overall I was still really into it. Definitely one of those books you can take your time with and flip back through. A great coffee table book!
If you like dogs and artsy history vibes, this is such a unique read.
I loved how it made me look at paintings differently. The dogs aren’t just random background details, they actually add meaning, emotion, and sometimes even tell their own little story. Super cool concept.
It did get a bit dense and academic in parts, which slowed me down a little, but overall I was still really into it. Definitely one of those books you can take your time with and flip back through. A great coffee table book!
If you like dogs and artsy history vibes, this is such a unique read.
August 1, 2026
A good birthday present. The physical copy is well-made, and the illustrations are vibrant. The contents are quite interesting, though the book lacks semiotic analysis and explanation of certain artistic choices. Not what I expected from a professor — I would like the analysis to go into deeper details.
Did Not Finish
August 4, 2026DNF at page 81. This is much more dense and a lot less fun than I expected. I would have preferred to see Laqueur give this as a lecture with visual aids. That might be on me, but also it is pretty annoying when the referenced image is on a different page and I have to constantly flip back and forth.
June 9, 2026
Fantastic!! Dogs, art, history and gorgeous illustrations... what more could you want? A beautiful and very interesting read!!
July 14, 2026
I appreciated being able to find an easy accompanying PDF on Spotify audiobooks. However, the book itself betrays the shallows of art history as an academic field.
July 27, 2026
Informative with beautiful paintings. Dogs are a good gift from God. I didn't realize this was straight-up art history until I got going, but I enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews