Dogs are man’s best friend, domestic companions or workers that are dependent on their master or mistress, and love above all else to please them. They’ve lived alongside humans for at least the last fifteen millennia, when most people were still hunter-gatherers rather than farmers. Unlike the domestic cat, they remained popular throughout the ancient Mediterranean civilisations and classical times, and feature in many myths.

Some of these have survived into later religious beliefs.

Cerberus is the horrifying three-headed canine monster shown in Blake’s late illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy, painted between 1824–27. This refers to Dante’s Inferno, canto 6 verses 12-24, where Dante and Virgil enter the Third Circle, in which gluttons are punished.

Cerberus is a good example of the redeployment of pre-Christian mythology into Christian beliefs: it was originally the guardian of the Underworld, and prevented those within from escaping back to the earthly world. It even features in the twelve labours of Heracles (Hercules), in which he captured Cerberus. Dante, with Virgil’s explicit involvement, incorporates it into his Christian concepts of the afterlife.

Later confusion over the Roman goddess Diana led to some strange pre-Christian myths, such as that about the Titan goddess of the Moon, Selene. Selene/Diana fell in love with Endymion when she found him asleep one day. Shen then asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth, resulting in him remaining in eternal sleep. Walter Crane’s beautiful pastoral watercolour of Diana and Endymion (1883) shows him fast asleep in a meadow. The goddess is clearly in her more usual role as huntress with her dogs, bow and arrows.

According to Julius Pollux, writing in his Onomasticon in the second century CE, it was Hercules’ dog who discovered the brilliant dye Tyrian purple. Hercules had been walking his dog on a Mediterranean beach where it was sniffing around shells and other debris that had been washed up with the waves. When the dog started to eat one of the shells, as dogs do, his mouth quickly turned bright purple. Fearing his dog’s mouth was bleeding profusely, Hercules looked inside before realising that the colour had come from the shell. This is told faithfully by Rubens in this painting of Hercules and the Discovery of the Secret of Purple from about 1636.

A dog’s loyalty is seldom dependent on wealth or creature comforts. Jean-Léon Gérôme’s portrait of the cynic philosopher Diogenes (1860) follows legend by showing him living in a large jar or barrel. The four dogs sat so attentively as he lights a lantern have hidden meaning too: the term cynic is derived from the Greek κυνικός (kynikos), meaning dog-like, the word which may be inscribed on the lantern that he is trying to light.

“There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them.” (Wikipedia.)

Dogs feature in numerous fables.

Paul de Vos, in his painting of The Fable of the Dog and the Dam from 1638-40, shows that known as the Dog and its Reflection, or the Dog with the Meat and its Shadow (Perry 133). In this, a dog acquired a piece of meat, and was crossing a stream when it looked down at its reflection in the water. Seeing another dog apparently carrying better food, it opened its mouth to bark at that reflection, and dropped the meat into the stream.

The term black dog refers to something quite different, though. Often used to refer to bouts of depression, for example by Winston Churchill, it draws on the sinister side of the species. This was developed by Goethe in his play Faust, where the anti-hero first meets the diabolic Mephistopheles in the form of a large black dog.

José Uría’s Faust from 1889 shows the moment that Faust brings the black dog into his study, setting up the rest of Goethe’s story.

Dogs are inveterate scavengers, and given the opportunity occasional thieves from the kitchen. For this they have earned themselves a place in one of the canonical religious paintings of Europe, the Last Supper. In this version painted by Titian in about 1542-44, the dog in the foreground is busily eating scraps which have fallen from the table.

Unlike cats, dogs are often attributed overt emotions, and are seen to reflect human feelings.

The Naturalist painter Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy specialised in groups of children and their social interactions inside and beyond school. His It’s Hard to Share shows one of the tribulations of childhood: these young boys have just emerged from a sweet shop, and the child in the centre is reluctant to share the paper cone of sweets which he has just bought. His face says it all, as he looks with great suspicion at his less fortunate friend. Note the dog looking up in expectation that it too deserves a share.

A few artists have used dogs as narrative devices.

Jan Matsys uses a couple of dogs to tell part of the story of David and Bathsheba (1562). After King David has taken a fancy to Bathsheba, the wife of one of his generals, the king sends one of his court to express his interest to the scantily-clad woman. The maid who has been bathing her feet appears to know well what is going on, judging by the wicked smile on her face, although her mistress’s reaction is harder to read. The best clue given here is with the two dogs: the sleek hound which has arrived with the king’s messenger is about to pounce on Bathsheba’s small lapdog.

Among the many working roles of dogs, their partnership with humans in hunting has been the most extensively painted.

Peter Paul Rubens’ Wolf and Fox Hunt from about 1616 is one of his brilliant series of hunting.

Dogs are often loyal to their master/mistress to the point of self-sacrifice. In Heinrich Bürkel’s Shepherds in the Roman Campagna (1837), one of the working dogs challenges a snake on the roadside.

Constant Troyon’s On the Way to Market from 1859 shows another working dog in less threatening circumstances, as it runs around chivvying livestock in the right direction.

In tomorrow’s sequel, I’ll concentrate on dogs as companions.