The profound bond between human beings and animals is as mysterious as it is undeniable.
To suppose that animals entered the human imagination as meat or leather is to project a 19th-century attitude backwards across the ages. Animals entered the imagination as messengers and promises.
For instance, the domestication of cattle did not begin as a search for milk and meat. Cattle had magical functions, sometimes sacrificial, sometimes oracular.
Art critic John Berger, “Why Look at Animals,” 1977
This same symbolic power is evident in the way we portray our closest animal companions. In great paintings, dogs do more than just fill the frame. They embody the human complexities of friendship, frustration, loyalty, and love.
Dogs symbolize friendship
In Saint Augustine in His Study, master storyteller Vittore Carpaccio uses a fluffy white dog to convey the friendship between two legendary philosophers who became pen pals in 394 CE.
Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome often disagreed. But their spirited (some would say rancorous) letters laid the foundation for Christian thought on morality, personal freedom, and everlasting life. When asked to describe Jerome’s mental prowess, Augustine said: “What he is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known.”
In this painting, Carpaccio depicts the young theologian deeply absorbed in his work. Suddenly, a radiant light bursts through the window, illuminating a home office strewn with books and sheet music
Augustine’s telepathic connection with Jerome is so strong he knows exactly what the aberration means: The older theologian has died and is about to enter the gates of heaven.
Even the dog senses the magnitude of the moment.
As far back as Aristotle, dogs were assigned the trait of extrasensory perception. The little Maltese is mesmerized by the light rushing in through the window, and his reaction confirms that something supernatural is going on here.
Eric Denker, Lecturer Emeritus, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 2023
Dogs symbolize frustration
In Hunters in the Snow, Northern Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder uses dogs to convey the mood of three men returning home from the hunt.
Painted during the peak of the Little Ice Age, this masterpiece represents the first large-scale depiction of winter in Western art. Villagers of all ages skate on two frozen ponds. A few are playing a Dutch sport called kolf, a cross between modern-day golf and ice hockey.
Icicles dangle from a mill wheel and bring it to a halt. Nearby, a woman shoulders a heavy bundle of firewood as she gingerly crosses a snow-covered bridge. Just beyond the village church, men scramble to put out a chimney fire.
In the foreground, three hunters trudge past an inn where the kitchen staff is preparing to roast a pig. Above the fire, a crooked sign depicts the likeness of Saint Eustace, the patron saint of hunters. Eustace must have taken a personal day off because these hunters are returning home with nothing to show for their work but a scrawny red fox.
Notice it’s not the men who signal their humbling defeat. Rather, it’s the weary hunting dogs who hang their heads and tuck their tails between their legs.
Dogs symbolize loyalty
In a narrative painting, what does it mean when a dog makes eye contact with you? Is Fido trying to tell you something?
In the painting The Lady’s Last Stake by British artist and social critic William Hogarth, a married woman and an army officer are playing a French card game known as piquet. They are playing for money.
Without warning, the lady throws her cards into the fireplace. She doesn’t like the hand she’s been dealt, nor is she blessed with an unlimited budget, as her husband, who is traveling, patiently reminds her in a letter lying on the floor.
The besotted soldier offers to play one more round. No matter the outcome, he will return her money. But if she loses, she must take him as her lover.
The color rises in the lady’s cheeks. She considers his proposition while bracing herself on a fire screen meant to shield her from the heat.
Hogarth uses the room’s decor as thought balloons to reveal what the lady is thinking. Above the fireplace is a portrait of The Penitent Magdalene, a woman accused of being promiscuous. The ornate clock on the mantel displays Cupid holding a scythe, which refers to Father Time clipping the wings of love (some would say sex). Four candles are lit, but how much longer will they burn?
Will the lady choose to be ruined financially or morally?
William Hogarth has painted a classical moment of crisis, when a choice is offered between good and evil. The theme was familiar to the ancients, but Hogarth transposes the theme from allegory and myth to the real world—with all of its warmth of life, its temptations, its irresolutions, its immediacy.
Author Mary Webster, “Hogarth,” 1979
Meanwhile, under the card table, a fluffy white lapdog in unusually high spirits looks out of the picture to meet our gaze. Fido, a symbol of marital fidelity, knows exactly how the lady will respond. “I don’t care too much for money,” she will tell the British army officer. “Money can’t buy me love.”
Dogs symbolize love
Long ago, a pretty girl named Margaret lived with her parents on a small Italian farm. When she was seven years old, the girl’s mother died and her father quickly remarried. In a tale as old as time, Margaret and her stepmother did not get along.
In her teens, Margaret ran off with a wealthy Italian nobleman. The couple lived together in his castle near Montepulciano, but did not marry. Margaret was given fine clothing, jewels, and even her own horse—which she rode through the streets of town without giving a second thought to the scandal she was causing. Soon after, she gave birth to a son.
One day, her lover failed to return home from a trip. Alarmed, Margaret followed his favorite dog into the Tuscan forest, where she found the man’s body severely beaten and hastily buried under a pile of tree branches.
The murder shocked Margaret into thinking differently about life. She returned to her father’s house, but was turned away. With nowhere else to go, she sought refuge with a group of Franciscan friars.
In the masterful narrative painting Saint Margaret of Cortona by Italian artist Gaspare Traversi, Margaret sits inside the friary listening to an angel describe how Jesus of Nazareth painfully sacrificed his own life so that God would forgive Margaret and she could make a fresh start.
In the background, Satan, who realizes he is about to lose another follower, covers his face and retreats into the fires of Hell.
Meanwhile, a handsome spaniel locks eyes with Margaret’s son. The little boy’s father may be gone, but his loyal dog stays in the picture.