The use of dogs in the works of Guillermo Lorca Garcia and Lucian Freud. A brief iconographical analysis
Laura y los perros (2012) oil on canvas
The pictorial realism in the work of Guillermo Lorca Garcia is only the first gate to the appreciation of a style that is both virtuously handled and conceptually planned to present ambiguous narratives that transcend the beauty of its formal mastery. Born in Santiago, Chile (1984), Lorca Garcia began his artistic training at the age of 16, and at the age of 22, he went on to work as apprentice and assistant with Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum (Crowie 2015), whose approach to painting is based on traditional methods, in a neo baroque style that holds Rembrandt’s technique as a primary influence as well as Caravaggio and Goya.
This remarkable influence in Lorca Garcia’s painting serves as a visual code to provide harmony between all the components present in his work. The way the artist deals with space is marked by a recognizable horror vacui, so characteristic of Baroque painting, and to what he says “it coincides with the obsessive side of his personality” (Mena 2014). Drawing inspiration from fairy tale stories, he builds these narratives transforming oral and literary tradition into bizarre scenarios, where an eerie ambience is exquisitely adorned: beautiful little girls, wild dogs, elegant drapery, flesh, animal carcasses and other highly theatrical elements coexist to create a new space talking directly to the viewer about all the childhood fears they thought lost in their memories. Lorca proves horror and desire as forces waiting to be awaken through the beauty and physicality of the paint.
Fire II (2013) oil on canvas
The artist often resorts to the use of animals, particularly dogs as an iconographic symbol deeply rooted in oral tradition and children tales. Dogs are portrayed to play an essential role in the plot to be discovered, but what that role is, intends to be ambiguous: Are they presented as loyal companions or latent menace? The artist himself has mentioned the dual nature of the animal in his work addressing among other things the childish fear around the macabre possibility of being eaten by something, but he also reflects on this as the destructive nature of sexual desire: the devourer and the devoured (Mena 2014).
Fairy tales have been enclosed in the realm of children literature but “they are by no means innocent stories devoid of psychological depth” (Tatar 2003 p. 38), the way characters behave and the hidden symbols behind the stories demand to be explored and interpreted. In “The Little house of sweets”, walls made of cookies and flesh combined in ongoing degradation recreate the space in which a little girl looks at the spectator in a provocative way offering a taste of that disturbing edible room; a piece of meat hangs on the right side of the picture and a dog (left) preys on an indistinguishable lump of flesh and blood while its subtle gaze is also directed to the viewer. According to the artist, this image was born with the reading of the book Psychoanalysis of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim, in his analysis, the house in the story of Hansel and Gretel represents an existence based on satisfaction of primitive desires and the characters are dragged by a self-destructive impulse: “this attraction to the abyss is what feeds into this painting” says the artist (Los Andes, 2015). The little girls and the dogs in his work embody that sense of contradiction, therefore the narrative remains open and can only be completed by the observer.
Little house of sweets (2011) oil on canvas
The creative pulsion can find vast amount of expression through symbolism as seen in the work of Lorca Garcia but is not the only way visual artists have represented the world around them. Lucian Freud, perhaps one of the most influential painters of the 20th century worked relentlessly to scrutinize the human form deprived of any idealization (Corbin 2011, p. 41); born in England in 1922 and grandson of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, his emphasis in figuration run in clear opposition to the avant-garde movements of the time, grounding his practice in portraiture, which he developed until the end of his life. Although his subject was a conventional one, his approach would merit him the intensity and groundbreaking quality associated only to that of great masters.
His work rejects the use of symbols, instead he painted people “how they happen to be” (Vaizey 2016, p. 192), the rawness takes over the representation of his sitters, and yet the results speak poignantly about the human condition in a psychological level. In words of Robert Hughes “his unsparing wit and pitiless judgment, which allow the sentimental no room” (Hughes 2004), resists any attempt to tell a story, his work is not about that, in fact he described himself as a biologist, capturing through the paint the animal physicality of the sitter (Corbin 2011, p. 43): is the flesh that records the human experience in a whole, which is mostly determined and shaped by it and as an artistic subject, the element that ultimately gave Freud’s painting that profound tone and a sense of universality.
Another recurrent subject in his work has been depicting animals, particularly dogs, one could say “he was attracted to animals as models as much as people” (Vaizey 2016, p. 192) (his whippets are often included in his paintings). Dogs are rendered equally exposed as the humans, moreover they are just not a mere stylistic choice but rather a constitutive part of the portrayed sitter, this is, people are depicted on their “animal heaviness” (Kuzniar 2006, p. 14), as the artists openly expressed “I am really interested in them as animals” (Vaizey 2012, p. 15). At the same level, because the companionship between human and animal is marked by a mute communication, the sitters are left to deal with their loneliness and a silent atmosphere dominates his painting.
Close up of ‘Sunny Morning — Eight Legs’ (1997) oil on canvas
In “Girl with a white dog”, a painting of his early stage, a woman with big expressive eyes looks somewhat immerse in her thoughts, yet she seems conscious of being observed while she covers one of her breasts in a protective gesture, there is nothing erotic about her attitude however exposed in her intimacy. Conversely, her faithful companion rests tranquil near her lap without noticing the viewer: “not all animals bear scrutiny with the same equanimity. For the human animal, being seen is hard; sometimes it hurts” (Corbin 2011, p. 42). During the late period of his work, Freud continued to use his whippets to compose the portraits (his last unfinished painting before his death features his assistant David Dawson and his dog); and a thick impasto technique would stand as the style for which he is mostly recognized and acclaimed.
Girl with a white dog (1950) oil on canvas
Dogs have been companions for humans since the dawn of civilization serving like guardians, guides, hunters and subjects of ritualistic traditions and all the symbols and spiritual qualities associated to them have nurtured all sorts of forms of artistic creation and philosophical reflections. During the Renaissance, dogs appeared in visual arts and literature as a reminder of the qualities of human nature that is sensual, irrational and sinful but also in a positive key, considered models to impart biblical wisdom about loyalty, intelligence and perspicacity; and in the 17th Century genre painting represented domesticity, fidelity and the promise of fecundity (Sutton 2016, p. 468). In the ancient Greek period, dogs were given the status of “philosophical animals” as Plato described their natural rationality and sagacity (Floridi 1997, p. 39, 42).
In other context, since from the Iron Age to the Roman Period dogs had a significant part in ritual activities, in some cases the were buried to serve as companions and guide to their masters in the passage to the other life. They were thought to be the guardian animal of goddesses Genita Mana and Hecate, the divine forces moving cyclical times and vegetation, since dogs were linked to death and the Underworld, their sacrifice was also part of a ritual passage to gain their favour (Snyder 2016, p. 62, 63). This association was not exclusive of Ancient Rome and Greece, dogs also play a similar role in Germanic mythology, nordic mythology as well as Etruscan and Macedonian cultures, in all of them the animal appears in the oral tradition related to death and the underworld as symbolic guardians (Snyder 2016, p. 65). It is quite notable that all the symbolism around the figure of dog results in many similarities across a vast number of ancient cultures, therefore it can be concluded that there is a certain degree of universality in the way human societies have symbolized dogs, supported by their role as companions in domestic life, in hunting and in warfare which are historically some of the most recognizable areas of human activity.
References
Ben, H 2011, “One man and his dog: Freud’s last picture will open celebration of a remarkable life”, Times, The (United Kingdom), p. 4, viewed 10 May 2018.
Corbin, IM 2011, “The Heavy Eyelids of Lucian Freud”, First Things: A Monthly Journal Of Religion & Public Life, 216, p. 41, Complementary Index, EBSCOhost, viewed 10 May 2018.
Crowie, K 2015, “Guillermo Lorca: Playing Games with Paranoia”. Viewed 9 May 2018, https://beautifulbizarre.net/2015/09/18/guillermo-lorca-playing-games-with-paranoia/
Farriol, R 2014, “Guillermo Lorca: The Eternal Life”, brochure, National Museum of Visual Arts, Santiago, Chile, viewed 10 May 2018, http://www.mnba.cl/617/articles-46265_archivo_01.pdf
Floridi , L 1997 , “Scepticism, Animal Rationality and the Fortune of Chrysippus’ Dog” Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie , vol 79 , pp. 27–57, viewed 11 may 2018, http://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/1836/902045.pdf?sequence=1
Fuentes, J 2014, “Painting dogs: Guillermo Lorca”, El Hurgador Art Blog, 17 june 2014, viewed 10 may 2018, http://elhurgador.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/pintando-perros-xxxiv-guillermo-lorca.html
Hughes, R 2004, “The Master at Work” , viewed 10 May 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2004/apr/06/art.saatchigallery
Kuzniar, A A 2006, Melancholia’s Dog: Reflections on Our Animal Kinship. The University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Mena, C 2014, “The Perverse Fiction of Guillermo Lorca”. Viewed 9 May 2018, http://www.paula.cl/tiempo-libre/la-perversa-ficcion-de-guillermo-lorca/
Snyder, L 2016, Dogs And People In Social, Working, Economic Or Symbolic Interaction, Oxbow Books, eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), viewed 15 May 2018
Sutton, E 2016, ‘Dogs and Dogma: Perception and Revelation in Rembrandt’s Presentation in the Temple, c. 1640', Art History, 39, 3, pp. 466–485, Art & Architecture Source, viewed 12 May 2018.
Tatar, M 2003, The Hard Facts of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, 2nd edn, Princeton University Press, United Kingdom.
Vaizey, M 2016, “Lucian Freud: Rebel with a cause”, Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, vol. 51, no. 2, p. 190–198
Vaizey, M 2012, ‘Lucian Freud Drawings In the context of Freudophila’, Cv/Visual Arts Research, vol. 145, pp. 5–21
“Lorca: I made my career my way”, 2015, viewed 10 may 2018, https://www.losandes.com.ar/article/guillermo-lorca-hice-la-carrera-a-mi-manera
