Why are there so many canines in fine art?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/07/the-dogs-gaze-thomas-w-laqueur/687312/

by prismatic • 2 months ago

19 30 2 months ago

theatlantic.com

magneticnorth3• 1 month ago

https://archive.is/UOU6r

magneticnorth3• 1 month ago

The human-dog relationship is maybe my favorite thing about being human.

We've bred this companion animal that we're able to bond with so deeply, and I so appreciate the simplicity of the bidirectional unconditional love. So rare between humans, so common human-to-dog.

This article makes an interesting point about dog attention as a focal point in art - not something I'd noticed before, but I enjoy having it pointed out to me.

mc323• 1 month ago

That the dogs are just about always subordinates and subservient makes the relationship easier to work -and of course, dogs are happy to comply since it's part of their instinct to be subordinate in the presence of a dominant being (canine or person). Human to human is a little more difficult since outside of structured organization, we don't tend to play subordinate in most Western culture. You do see some cultures where men play an exceedingly dominant role (where women by multiple facets of tradition play the submissive role) and there is less man-woman strife, yet there is man-man strife since outside of structured organizations men don't automatically measure up and decide they are inferior or superior and accept and internalize that relationship (though some Eastern cultures do display deference at a superficial level).

Moms also tend to have a soft-spot for the momma's boys.

squidsoup• 1 month ago

That the dogs are just about always subordinates and subservient makes the relationship easier to work

You've clearly never lived with a border collie.

magneticnorth3• 1 month ago

You do see some cultures where men play an exceedingly dominant role .. and there is less man-woman strife

Citation needed

JumpCrisscross4• 1 month ago

You do see some cultures where men play an exceedingly dominant role (where women by multiple facets of tradition play the submissive role) and there is less man-woman strife

Really? Many of them, to my mind, have endemic issues with sexual violence, honor-based violence (e.g. acid throwing) and foregone development.

IAmBroom• 1 month ago

You do see some cultures where men play an exceedingly dominant role (where women by multiple facets of tradition play the submissive role) and there is less man-woman strife

Aside from morality police arresting or even whipping women on the street for infractions of the sexist laws... Yeah, places like Iran are a virtual Heaven on Earth for women.

NopIdoN• 1 month ago

yet "like a dog" is rarely flattering

zmgsabst• 1 month ago

“Dogged” is approximately 700 years old and complimentary.

ksymph2• 1 month ago

I dunno, it kinda freaks me out. For thousands of years we've been selectively breeding another species to love us unconditionally, and be so subservient to the point of dependence.

Imagine if we found out some alien species has their own 'breed' of human they've been genetically engineering for millennia; one that wants nothing more than the company of their alien owners and hates when they leave, that has been bred to be perpetually child-like and devoid of critical thinking in order to better please them, is sometimes pampered and sometimes abused but absolutely subject to the alien species' will. They keep us locked in a house or yard most of the day because their world is dangerous for us, and see all of this as totally justified because they're our intellectual superiors. They make posts on AlienNews about how beautiful the alien-human relationship is because they bred us to be the perfect companion; only magnifying the social compulsions that already existed in humans, to be fair, but still fundamentally changing us.

For the record I do understand that selectively bred humans != dogs, but it still just makes me kinda uncomfortable when I think about it all too much.

JumpCrisscross4• 1 month ago

Imagine if we found out some alien species has their own 'breed' of human they've been genetically engineering for millennia

Isn’t that just being a child? I get the rejection of neoteny. But haven’t humans also become genetically better suited for civilization than our wild ancestors?

shfuhsher• 1 month ago

Well there are theories humans on Earth are selectively bred too.

The selective breeding that led to the dogs being more subservient also affected humans. As human populations who worked with dogs had advantages over the ones who didn’t. That’s a theory at least.

There are also theories that humans domesticated ourselves. That civilization promotes certain traits over others. Just like when we domesticated other species we chose to promote some traits over others.

Jails could be an example of this process. Violent fools getting removed from society. The genes that led to that stuff being removed. Meanwhile the humans with traits more compatible with society get successful and have kids and so pass on those traits.

SJC_Hacker• 1 month ago

Maybe it’s the dogs who conditioned us to love then

Especially modern dogs, who generally don’t have to do much anymore

My late Labrador Retriever laid on the couch lol dy, while I had to bust my butt at work

So who was getting the better deal there ?

Hugsbox• 1 month ago

Idk man, that sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. I don't have to go anywhere or do anything, all my needs are taken care of for me, I can just relax and do whatever I want. What could be better than that? Sign me up lmao

omerhj• 1 month ago

Edward Ashton's "After the Fall" explores this alien-human relationship. Good summer read!

vitally3643• 1 month ago

That's not really how it worked. It's more accurate to say that dogs co-evolved with humans in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. We've only been actively selectively breeding dogs for a few thousand years.

It's a pretty good relationship for the dogs from an evolutionary perspective. All of their needs are met forever, they experience essentially no hardship or struggle, and their species gets a free ride to survive indefinitely into the unimaginably distant future by being attached to a more successful species.

Being cute is a strategy to get attached to humans. Selective breeding amplified this in recent times, but humans evolved to find dogs cute and dogs evolved to be cute in order to enforce the symbiosis. Humans didn't subjugate dogs, the presence of the human species created an ecological niche and dogs evolved to take advantage of it.

Remember that we didn't just create dogs. Wolves initially filled the role that dogs now take. Over evolutionary time, wolves adapted to better fit the niche. Not because humans wanted that, but because it was evolutionarily advantageous for a companion species to be more compatible with its host. Wolves got smaller, more friendly to humans, more protective. Wolves that didn't protect their humans lost the benefits humans provide and died. Wolves that attacked in-group humans were excluded or killed. Wolves that didn't obey their humans died due to hazards to themselves or their humans.

We only started breeding them after they became dogs. They evolved from wolves to dogs on their own.

SanjayMehta• 1 month ago

Sometimes he stared first at the ball or man, then back at me, then at the ball or man again, until I retrieved the ball or moved away from the man.

My dog stares at me, then the AC, then back at me again when he wants it turned on.

JimsonYang• 1 month ago

Is it the same in movies? I wonder if the dogs motif is across different media format

metalman• 1 month ago

come on! dogs knew where technology was going and started there media based influencer campain early, knowing that was key to them beating us into space

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika

newtonianrules• 1 month ago

Because dogs are awesome. Next question!

stefan_lec• 1 month ago

Because they couldn’t get the cats to pose obediently for the artist?

anigbrowl• 1 month ago

Why shouldn't there be? Large numbers of people like dogs. Another Atlantic 'investigation' of a nontroversy.

JumpCrisscross4• 1 month ago

Why shouldn't there be?

Nobody said there shouldn’t. It’s an exploratory piece of the intersection of art and the relationship between humans and dogs. It’s genuinely useful to know that ancient Romans eulogized their dogs, in part because it tells us about ourselves.

throwaway85825• 1 month ago

We like dogs

Why are there so many canines in fine art?

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