The Dog's Gaze

In this beautiful book, Laqueur shows that dogs are everywhere in our lives and our art

Sally Mann

It is difficult to think of many other books that are at once so brilliant, so wonderfully entertaining, and so moving. I savoured every page and lingered over every illustration. It turns out that a dog’s eye view gives us unique access to some of the deepest longings, needs, and creative powers of our own species. The Dog’s Gaze is full of exuberant insights about our canine friends, about art, and about the human condition

Stephen Greenblatt

The Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History is a treasure trove of fascinating material. There could be no more congenial and erudite guide than Professor Laqueur through centuries of artwork from ancient times to 20th-century America and beyond. Each dog portrait is both unique and emblematic: the dog as a companion of aristocrats, and of the common man; the dog at the periphery of human activity, and the dog as a measure of morality; the dog alone, in extremis, a mirror of human loneliness. We see in these richly varied depictions of our most faithful animal companion something of the evolution of our own humanity but most profoundly we see the dog as a creature of infinite beauty, irresistible to generations of artists

Joyce Carol Oates

A splendid blend of histories: natural, cultural, and artistic ... The Dog's Gaze is a delight for dog-loving art connoisseurs, and vice versa

Kirkus Reviews

Luminous ... Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art, from Rembrandt’s etching The Good Samaritan to the Jeff Koons balloon dog, by way of cinema superstar Lassie. His special interest, though, is for those places where dogs are engaged in an act of looking ... by the end of this clever, beautiful book, Laqueur has persuasively made his point that the dog’s function in western art is to provide an entry-point or alter ego for viewers who might otherwise feel overwhelmed or outclassed ... [it is] a brilliant interpretation of their role at heart

Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

In this charming and lavishly illustrated book, Laqueur sets out how to discover what dogs do for the artists and how they do it … The Dog’s Gaze is an enjoyable romp

Chloe Ashby, The Times

As long as canines have been an integral feature of the human world, they have been an integral feature of our artistic world. In The Dog's Gaze, historian Thomas W Laqueur seeks to answer the question of why.... Striking

Luka Ivan Jukic, Financial Times

[Laqueur] handles an enormous timespan with confidence and deftness of touch. The result is a book that is both erudite and entertaining

Kirsten Tambling, Literary Review

Brilliantly wise and engaging ... a thoughtful, erudite account of dogs in art, from prehistoric petroglyphs to Lucien Freud's whippets, William Wegman's photographs of Welmaraners and a yellow dog in a painting by Kerry James Marshall. Most of the great dogs of art history are here, but the book also contains many paintings I didn't know. A magnificent, generous book

Robert Hanks, Apollo Magazine

an enthralling study… Laqueur is a stylish writer who wears his considerable scholarship lightly and the book itself is a visual stunner

Editor's pick, Airmail

A work of immensely humane scholarship ... Laqueur wants to tell us why dogs matter, demystifying his subject while respecting its mystique. [His] writing is erudite and expansive in its range of reference and knowledge, but it is addressed not just to a nonexpert audience but to a larger humane mission

Adam Gopkin, The New Yorker

Magnificently illustrated ... The Dog's Gaze provides an answer to the eternal question of the bond between man and dog ... [it] is more than an upmarket book of dog pictures: It is a meditation, through art, on our closest relationship with another species. French critical theory is usually a barrier to understanding the world, but Laqueur, a fluent writer, uses the concept of "the gaze" to good effect, [showing how dogs are] part of our subjective world in the way that no other creature can ever be

Adrian Wooldridge, Bloomberg

superbly illustrated and beautifully written ... [full of] countless magical and erudite insights ... The Dog's Gaze is the kind of volume you'll return to again and again, learning something new each time. Laqueur guides us through the history of art and the relationship between dogs and humans [with] deep knowledge, energised by the [his] obvious love for our four- legged friends .

Bel Mooney, Mail on Sunday

Inspiring, educational, moving, sometimes distressing, this is a riveting visual history of man’s best friend… a fascinating book with stunning illustrations.

Elisa Segave, Spectator

The book is never not interesting, particularly if you are an appreciator of dogs ... The Dog’s Gaze is not a quick read, and in fact, it rewards slow work, gazing at the image yourself, reading Laqueur’s thoughts, returning to the image, and then Laqueur’s take again ... I will eagerly pick up the book again in the future to re-read, to gaze again, a gift that keeps on giving

John Warner, Chicago Tribune