Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Animated and Cartoon Dogs

George P. Dog & Foghorn Leghorn
by Robert McKimson

Many of my favorite breeds of dogs have been captured in animated cartoons over the years. Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera, and Walt Disney animators created some of the most memorable canine characters. My personal favorite is Looney Tunes' Barnyard Dawg (a.k.a. George P. Dog), the Basset Hound nemesis of the rooster Foghorn Leghorn. Foghorn would famously taunt the dog, knowing the limit of his tether.

Droopy the Dog
by Tex Avery






Another early (1957) Basset Hound character was Droopy.
Astronaut Snoopy (Pintrill)

Beagles were also popular choices for dog toons such as Peanuts’ SnoopyUnderdog, Gromit, and even Mr. Peabody from The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. Charles Schulz's Snoopy is of course my favorite. In college, I used to draw Snoopy dressed in various costumes, sports uniforms, etc.

I don't have any of my own drawings anymore, so I took this one from an Internet ad for Peanuts lapel pins.




Spike & Tyke
by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera

When I moved off campus in college, I would get home from class in the afternoon in time to watch Hanna-Barbera's Tom and Jerry. Spike the Bulldog made his first appearance in 1942 in the cartoon Dog Trouble. He was later joined by Tyke, a bulldog puppy. Much later in 1979, Hanna-Barbera introduced Scrappy-Doo to the Scooby-Doo cartoon series about the adventures of a Great Dane playing detective. The Jetsons' Astro was also a Great Dane. The Flintstones' pet was a small dinosaur named Dino who barked like a prehistoric 'dog'.



Auggie Doggie & Doggie Daddy
by Hanna and Barbera



When my roommates' dogs had puppies, I claimed one of the males from the litter and named him Auggie after Hanna-Barbera's Auggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy. My puppy was a small gold and white Spaniel mix rather than a Dachshund. Garfield's Odie has been thought to be a Dachshund mix.



Hanna & Barbera's
Huckleberry Hound


Who can forget Huckleberry Hound, the (blue) Coonhound. Another Hanna-Barbera lesser-known cartoon sidekick is the Bloodhound Snuffles from Quick Draw McGraw.





Wacky Races'
Muttley the Dog


I also like the character Muttley, who is known as the foil to the cartoon villain Dick Dastardly from 1968's Wacky Races. I recently watched It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) which curiously may have been the model for this ensemble cartoon. Lots of well-known celebrities were racing around looking for the treasure buried under "The Big W" by Jimmy Durante's character. Great movie!




Lady and the Tramp
by Artist Eyvind Earle

Disney's Lady and the Tramp (1955) is an animated movie about a Cocker Spaniel named Lady and her beau, a mutt named Tramp. Then in 1961, One Hundred and One Dalmatians was released starring Pongo and Perdita (Purdy) as the prolific parents of a litter of 15 puppies. When the puppies are stolen by the evil Cruella de Vil, 84 more become adopted after being rescued.



Disney's Nana


Disney's Peter Pan (1953) included Nana the St. Bernard as the nursemaid pet of the Darling children. In 1991's Hook, Nana was an Old English Sheepdog, then in the 2003 version of Peter Pan she was replaced by a St. Bernard. In James M. Barrie's book, Nana was a Newfoundland, after his household pet. We have a black Newfoundland named Newman in our neighborhood. 


Ren by Bill Wray




The adult cartoon, Ren and Stimpy (1991) is about a Chihuahua named Ren (Höek) and a cat named Stimpson "Stimpy" J. Cat. The characters were created by John Kricfalusi and illustrated by cartoonist Bill Wray. Some of the subject matter caused some episodes to be banned from TV.



Snuffles by artist Devaun Dowdy


Another adult animated (sitcom), Rick and Morty (2013), features a Maltese named Snuffles (a.k.a. Snowball). Apparently the pet's name was changed back-and-forth. We had a Maltese pair, Bogey and Bella for over 14 years. We've had a male Havanese-Pekingese-Poodle for the past two years.





Dug & Alpha from Up

Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film (2009) Up won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2010. It features protagonist Golden Retriever Dug and antagonist Doberman Pincer Alpha. Both dogs were equipped with collars that allowed them to speak human; Alpha's device malfunctioned making his voice high-pitched like he had inhaled Helium.


Thursday, December 2, 2021

Making Connections with Artists & Animals

The Old Guitarist (1903-4), Picasso

Many of my posts connect art elements and principles to the artists and movements that were inspired by them. Two websites that I recently visited argue that an artist's fame comes from the connections they made with other artists rather than from their own creativity:

Study Finds Artists Become Famous through Their Friends, Not the Originality of Their Work and

Artists Can Become Famous Through Connections and Not Their Creativity

I like to look for famous artwork in movies and on TV. Picasso's The Old Guitarist frequently appears in episodes of Bewitched, which I watch repeatedly in reruns. It was hung rotated 90 degrees to the right to fit over the Stephens' fireplace. The Cleavers' front door on Leave it to Beaver is flanked by by Sir Thomas Lawrence's Pinkie (1794) and Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy (1770). Officers Row on Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA even displayed this pair (in needlepoint) in the dining room of one of the houses we rented there. I hadn't connected the two Thomas's.



One of my posts identifies the Fathers of Art Movements and further mentions the social network of member artists who shared similar visions that inspired their own unique styles and interpretations. Picasso developed his style by admiring African sculpture, particularly traditional African masks and ancient Egyptian art, as well as Iberian sculpture. He was influenced by the art of Paul Klee, as well as French painters Paul Cézanne and Eugène Delacroix.


Las Meninas (1957), Picasso


In 10 Quotes from Famous Artists - My Own Interpretation, Picasso is quoted as saying, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." In 1957, Picasso rescued a dachshund named Lump who had been diagnosed with a spinal condition. He lived 10 years longer than expected and died 10 days before his master. Picasso featured Lump as the dog in his recreation of Diego Velázquez' Las Meninas (1656).




Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889), Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, and Gustav Klimt were all influenced by Japanese art. Van Gogh's interpretations can be seen hanging on the walls of his bedroom in his own paintings. His "The Angelus (After Millet)" is almost a direct copy of Jean-François Millet's painting but with his own color scheme.



Head of a Dog (1882), Monet


Claude Monet's garden is famous for its Japanese footbridge, which is prominent in his Waterlilies series. We visited his garden in Giverny, France in May 2011 on our trip to France and Italy. Monet was influenced by Manet, Boudin, Hokusai and Jongkind. Monet also painted animals, such as the domesticated turkeys I mentioned in my recent Thanksgiving Artwork post. He even painted a dog's head.


Doge Andrea Gritti (c1545), Titian



Continuing with Japanese connections, there is an Internet meme called doge which first appeared in 2013 and is based on a Japanese Shiba Inu dog named Kabosu. The word doge actually refers to an Italian magistrate from Venice or Genoa, dating back to the 16th century. It is also a word that is popular in the game of Scrabble. My daughter recently returned from a visit to Italy that included Venice. Her Korean village dog is a rescue that she originally thought was a Shiba Inu. 






One of my colleagues at Paws with Cause creates whimsical portraits of shelter animals dressed in regal attire. I love this portrait of Pepe the Dog. Pepe would qualify as the Doge of his animal shelter. While my friend and fellow resident artist is not famous, she is certainly creative!





Lady with an Ermine (c1490), da Vinci


The next artist on the mindshare index of famous artists is Leonardo da Vinci. He was influenced by Lorenzo de Medici, John Argyropoulos and Andrea del Verrocchio. I like how his Mona Lisa (1503) has been called a counterpart to Vermeer's The Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) -- a.k.a. "the Mona Lisa of the North." I like his unusual Lady with an Ermine (c1490). The ermine (similar to a ferret) is a member of the family Mustelidae. The Washington Ferret Rescue and Shelter in Kirkland, WA  has ~150 ferrets looking to be adopted as fur-ever pets. While they aren't currently supported by Paws with Cause, they certainly seem worthy of support. I wish I had a ferret portrait to show you!




Le Civilisateur (1946), Magritte
The next artist on the list is Surrealist Salvador Dali, who was influenced by Pablo Picasso, René Magritte and Joan Miró. Dali often included animals in his dreamlike paintings and has been photographed walking his anteater and petting his ocelot (See Surrealists and Their Pets.). Magritte's portrait of his pet Pomeranian-Spitz, fetched €489,000 in March 2018. Just think of the shelter pets we could support with that kind of Euro!





Kachina, le chien de Peggy Guggenheim (1946), Ernst


Max Ernst's portrait of his Pekingese, Kachina looks more like a lioness of grand scale in this Hopi landscape. Apparently, he had lived with American art collector Peggy Guggenheim (her dog?) before marrying American artist Dorothea Tanning.




Valse bleue (1954), Tanning




Tanning also painted an oversized Kachina in her Blue Waltz later in 1954. The painting is certainly surreal and the color scheme reminds me of paintings of couples by Marc Chagall. Some websites defined Kachina as a Lhasa Apso Terrier, rather than a Pekingese, which suits the lion reference better.





Le chat aux poissons rouges
(1914), Henri Matisse



Henri Matisse was influenced by Asian and African art, Post-Impressionists Gauguin, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, and his Mentor, Camille Pissarro. He was also a lover of animals, mainly cats, dogs, and doves. See The Friday Art Cat for Matisse's Interior with Goldfish (1914) and a second Etsy version by Deborah Julian where she adds Matisse's two cats -- Minouche and Coussi, or a black cat named la Puce (the flea). Here is his The Cat with Red Fish. I love these happy paintings. This one is reminiscent of others painted in the same room with the red printed wallpaper and window to the outside.





You may also like to read about The Most Famous Arty Pet Lovers And Their Furry Friends. For example, Georgia O'Keeffe's first dog was a poodle named Pancho, and she also had a total of six Chows as pets over her lifetime. Like Picasso, Andy Warhol favored dachshunds and kept two as pets.