Why Are There So Many Urinating Animals in 17th Century Art
Paintings from the 17th-century "Golden Historic period" of Dutch art are breathtaking in their clarity, quality of low-cal and degree of particular. During this fourth dimension, painters such Johannes Vermeer, Gerrit Dou, Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu, Gerard ter Borch and Jan Steen created a body of work that has endured for more than than 300 years.
Referred to by the 19th-century term "genre paintings," they depict primarily interiors: café and brothel scenes (always with a moralistic tone); maids or women doing their domestic chores; and women in beautiful gowns writing or receiving honey letters, looking at themselves (or us) in the mirror, or playing an musical instrument. Many of these subjects were repeated over and over again, and painters borrowed and stole compositions, figures and ideas from one some other in their quest to produce even ameliorate works of art.
As they did in life, dogs announced in many of these paintings. Spaniels, Whippets and Greyhounds too equally less-familiar breeds can be seen playing, sleeping, begging and sometimes urinating. Small Spaniels kept past the lady of the firm are frequently shown, while in pubs and brothels, we encounter more nonspecific breeds. Men and boys are often portrayed with a hunting dog such as a Greyhound or a larger Spaniel.
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In fact, small, friendly and loyal Spaniels pop up over again and again. (Information technology is interesting to notation that while Vermeer and Dou rarely included dogs in their genre scenes—although make note of Dou's amazing Sleeping Dog (1650)—Metsu, ter Borch and Steen did so frequently.) The early on Dutch Spaniel was a fairly generic type from which contemporary Dutch breeds such every bit the Kooikerhondje and the Markiesje were developed. In England, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel became very pop in the 17th century, a trend that quickly reached kingdom of the netherlands. Many of the dogs are similar-looking black, chocolate-brown/white or red/white small-scale Spaniels, companion dogs for the lady and children of the house. Their frequent appearance in paintings, particularly genre scenes, suggests how popular they must accept been at the time.
The 17th-century Dutch were fond of symbolism, metaphors and preaching morals, and many of the genre paintings had meanings and riddles that were easy for contemporary viewers to read and recognize. Music-making was a metaphor for love, women combing their hair in front end of a mirror suggested cleanliness and purity, and letters referenced the long absences required past merchandise and state of war. However, some are slightly harder for us to sympathise. Portraits of children often feature pet dogs, not only because the canis familiaris may accept been the child'south favorite companion, but also because people considered the training of dogs to exist a good metaphor for raising and educating children. A well-trained dog tin exist "useful," a concept that also applied to children of the fourth dimension.
In adult portraits, hunting dogs could refer to the possessor's wealth and aristocratic status, and Spaniel companion dogs, to marital fidelity. That said, dogs tin as well have a more sensuous meaning, serving every bit warnings confronting lust and indecency. Finally, dogs were sometimes included in a scene for purely aesthetic reasons, perchance to heighten the domestic atmosphere.
One of the clearest uses of dogs as a warning against sensual pleasure can be seen in the mating dogs in Frans van Mieris's Brothel Scene (1658–1659); some remember that until the 20th century, the male person canis familiaris was overpainted, as information technology was considered indecent. The painting shows a young daughter and a man. He is holding his glass out and she is most to fill it with wine. Her smiling face and his quizzical expect suggest that something is going on. We get plenty of clues nearly what that might exist: he's tugging her skirt to pull her closer, and in the back room, nosotros see the mating dogs as well equally another couple. This scene functions as a moral alert against lust.
The presence of a dog besides symbolized the more positive traits of loyalty and fidelity, equally in ter Borch'due south Officer Writing a Letter, with a Trumpeter (1658–1659) and its companion piece, which depicts a adult female sealing a letter. Ter Borch was particularly fond of love-letter scenes; no fewer than eighteen paintings known to be by his hand feature people writing letters. Both paintings include individuals waiting to acceleration the cannonball. The cherry-red tablecloth on the officer's tabular array is echoed in the red brim of the maid waiting for her mistress's alphabetic character in the companion painting. The officeholder and the lady each accept a dog nearby —the officer, a Whippet or small Greyhound watching the trumpeter, and the lady, a small Spaniel sleeping at her feet.
Creating his ain companion pieces, Metsu followed this trend. Both his letter writers are in Vermeer-manner interiors, with tiled floors and paintings on the walls, and are writing or reading adjacent to a brightly lit window. Woman Reading a Letter of the alphabet (ca. 1664–1666) reminds us even more of Vermeer, whose piece of work is farther referenced in the lady's familiar yellow silk jacket. (A number of Vermeer paintings include women wearing a very similar jacket.) Metsu does, however, work these elements into his own painting language. In the moving picture, the maid lifts a curtain off a painting of a maritime scene, which is often used to refer to the stormy waters of marital dear. The little Spaniel looking up at the maid suggests that the lady has been faithful. And in ter Borch's The Suitor'southward Visit (ca. 1658), a piddling Spaniel stands meaningfully betwixt the lady and her male visitor.
The sheer dazzler of these paintings carries the viewer away to some other place and fourth dimension, but the presence of dogs so similar to those of today grounds them. This spark of recognition provides a way to understand the 17th-century human being dramas the paintings describe, making their representations of loyalty and want familiar to a 21st-century audience. It's a familiarity that makes these treasures even more than highly-seasoned.
Source: https://thebark.com/content/17th-century-golden-age-dutch-paintings-dogs-are-everywhere
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