Since prehistoric times, animals have been represented by humans on cave walls as part of their daily lives. With the settlement of nomadic communities, the domestication of animals, and agriculture, these became part of their family group and culture.
In some civilizations, such as ancient Egypt, certain animals were worshipped and considered deities, as we can see represented on the walls of many tombs and sarcophagi. One of these gods was Anubis, the funerary god with the head of a black canid. Some historians believe this to be a reinterpretation of a specific breed, the Pharaoh Hound, better known in Spain as the rabbit dog. Cats, birds, and snakes are also present in Egyptian religion.
In Spanish art, among many others, Velázquez's dog in Las Meninas stands out. Lying in a corner, it is another actor in this futuristic composition, which constitutes one of the masterpieces of art history. Goya and other painters, including Picasso and Dalí later on, would include dogs, birds, and other animals in their works.
In Pop Art, the dog returned to the canvases with painters such as Keith Haring, who, with spectacular simplicity of line, sketched some highly energetic little dogs that became immensely popular in mass culture. Andy Warhol also painted dogs in every color imaginable. An example is the work Two Dogs, which he created with Jean-Michel Basquiat and which was auctioned by Sotheby's for one million dollars.
But if we focus on living artists, David Hockney's portraits of his little dogs stand out. They became famous worldwide after a series of portraits by the artist in which we can see his brown pets frolicking in multiple poses on their little beds.
But perhaps one of the contemporary artists who has immortalized the most animals is Jeff Koons. The controversial, multimillionaire creator has devoted a large part of his career to portraying pets. Among his controversial works is Puppy, Koons's dog that guards the entrance to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and is one of the most amusing pets in the art world. It is a giant West Highland terrier created using a hydraulic irrigation structure that supplies water to the differently colored flowers forming it, conceived by the American artist in 1992.
We must not forget his famous balloon dogs, shiny steel sculptures that look like dogs made from inflated balloons. One of them reached a price of 58 million dollars at a Christie's auction. One of his most famous pieces is the portrait of Michael Jackson with his monkey Bubbles from 1988, a white-and-gold ceramic sculpture depicting the artist with his pet sitting on his lap, both dressed in the same shirt. Animals are a constant in his work: lobsters, rabbits, monkeys, elephants, swans, monkeys, panthers, and snakes, which he examines under his gaze, described by some as kitsch.
As we can see, humans are capable of continually reinterpreting animal iconography, adapting its aesthetics to different artistic movements and the personalities of painters.
Links of interest:
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/contemporary-art-day-sale-n09142/lot.265.html
http://www.hockneypictures.com/works_paintings_90_12.php
http://www.jeffkoons.com/artwork/puppy/puppy
http://www.jeffkoons.com/artwork/banality/michael-jackson-and-bubbles