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.