"Portrait of a Dog
Belonging to Lord Edward Bentinck," James Watson, 1768. After
George Barret, mezzotint.
Wesleyan Exhibits Images from Dürer to Wegman
MIDDLETOWN, CONN. - ": Images from Dürer to Wegman," on exhibit
at the Davison Art Center through March 7, presents a history of
dogs in art spanning five centuries from the Renaissance to the
present.
Themes represented include dogs as hunters and domestic
companions, dogs enacting human emotions and moral
characteristics and dogs as endless sources of humor and delight.
Just as human figures in art over the ages change in style and
meaning, so too do their canine counterparts.
Mythological subjects in the exhibition incorporate fashionable
dogs such as Albrecht Dürer's "St Eustace," circa 1500-01, but
perhaps the most posh is the spaniel in James Watson's 1768
"Portrait of a Dog Belonging to Lord Edward Mentinck."
During the Nineteenth Century there appear many sentimentalized
images of canines enacting human emotions and morals. These
included L.-N. Lepic's "For the Poor," an etching of a dog
begging for money.
A supporter of bills against cruelty to animals, Queen Victoria
might have taken that print to heart. "No civilization," she
stated, "is complete when it does not include the dumb and
defenseless of God's creatures within the sphere of charity and
mercy." These Twentieth Century images refer back to a long
tradition in which dogs appear to speak with human voices.
The exhibition also includes prints that use dogs as surrogates
or emblems of the human condition. William Wegman's dogs defy
traditional categories of canine representation. For instance,
his "Bat Bite" might have been conceived as a scene based on
Nineteenth Century female odalisque compositions. But the
semirecumbent Weimaraner (Battina) is teething, and Wegman
photographed her just as she turned her head around to chew on
the chair back.
In the exhibit, "John Heartfield: Fighting the Dogs of War," also
on view through March 7, the German artist John Heartfield
(Berlin 1891-1968) is featured. Heartfield was a founding member
of the Berlin Dada group and shared a studio with painter and
illustrator George Grosz, whom he met in Berlin in 1915. A member
of the Communist Party, Heartfield was active designing books and
posters as well as doing newspaper and magazine work for the
party in the 1920s, innovatively combining photography and
typography in his work.
Many of Heartfield's photomontages were first published in the
1920s and 1930s in the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (Workers'
Illustrated Paper) and the Volks-Illustrierte (People's
Illustrated). On view in this exhibition are 18 collotype
reproductions of Heartfield's photomontages.
The Davison Art Center is at 301 High Street. For information,
860-685-2500 or www.Wesleyan.edu/dac.
