Info on symbols in fine art/ painting?? Help animals/ dogs?

Dogs most often symbolize loyalty and fidelity and guardianship or watchfulness, though sometimes they have a sexual meaning -- referring to promiscuity, for example. Everything depends on context, on the subject of the art work involved.

The dog was used as the symbol of the Domenican religious order, as a play on their name -- "cane" is Italian for dog, and the "Domenicani" sometimes referred to themselves as "God's dogs" or even "God's watchdogs."

It's also important to remember that sometimes a dog is just a dog.

The site below offers some information.

From;

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/midd...

Dog - Guidance, protection, loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness, watchfulness, the Hunt.

From;

http://writedesignonline.com/assignments/masks/ani...

Dog - companionship, health, service, loyalty, protection, future prosperity.

From;

http://www.albertrabil.com/projects2000/lindarount...

"In Renaissance representations, the animal had yet to lose meaning altogether. It had only exchanged part of its symbolic powers for allegorical and mythological interpretations. It may have lost its magic spell, but none of its charm. Human virtues and vices were mainly what animals stood for. "In a Christian context, the dog, specifically, esteemed already in the ancient world for its fidelity according to Pliny, could become an earthly emblem of that virtue." (Hall, 105) Carved in postures of steadfast watchfulness alongside many tomb effigies, or in the form of a cuddly lap dog, it represented not only marital fidelity, but also perhaps erotic desire, equally proportioned in the commemoration of a marriage. In portraiture, at the feet of a woman or in her lap, it alluded to her marital fidelity or if a widow, to her faithfulness of her husband's memory, and had similar meanings in double portraits of husband and wife. Art mirrors, sometimes directly, sometimes subliminally, almost every change of human experience through history. Therefore, the role of dogs, in life as in art, might add insight about what was happening in the world of the Renaissance.

The dog as guardian appears in Renaissance emblem books. "The dog was also interpreted as a symbol of fidelity in Whitney's emblem Medici Icon, which represented Aesculapius seated on a throne with a scepter in one hand and a staff in the other,… and a dog at his feet…[denoting] faithfulness and love which physicians should show in their professions." (Rowland, 62) The notion of "watchdog" was seen on the elaborately embroidered coat of Francesco Sforza of Milan in the early fifteenth century "after he had put down the popular disturbances … and had taken over the city." (Rowland, 63) Reclining at the feet of man, the dog came to symbolize strength and courage in the Renaissance. " In certain fourteenth-century illustrations, the dog was given a pose appropriate to his master's reputation….gnawing at a bone or lying patiently at his master's feet." (Rowland, 63) Rubens and Tintoretto painted numerous works depicting St. Roch, a fourteenth-century saint who is generally accompanied by his dog."

(More in this site).

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Just a link update!

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/midd...

is now

http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/middle/animal...