an arctic dog

James Ward, 1769–1859, British, Arctic Dog, Facing Left, undated, Graphite on medium, smooth, cream, wove paper, mounted on, modertately thick, slightly textured, beige, laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

One of the things I learned when I looked into the Royal Academician James Ward is that he's considered a largely neglected artist as far as art history is concerned.  I'm ready to back that up after several attempts to check links to this reference or that page only to find them 404'd out of what passes for memory these days.  Still, that doesn't change the fact that Ward was a powerful Romantic stylist with a great feel for the animals he portrayed.  While Romanticism with a capital R glorified the power of individual emotion and of nature, it also - in the best hands - knew how to find that in smaller subjects.  In this case, we have Ward taking a moment to rough out the intelligent, friendly face of an "Arctic dog," something - someone - new and different from the usual country hounds and horses.

hairy eyeball 1849

thanks wikiart.org (PD)

No difficulty getting this model to stay put: he's perfectly comfortable, thank you very much.  Dogs have been giving us that sidelong eyeball since time immemorial.  In this deft "Study of a Dog" of 1849, the great English landscape watercolorist David Cox gives us a timeless glimpse of a friend.
Cox was a member of the Birmingham School of landscape artists, a group that brought a personal character to the natural scenes and objects portrayed, investing their subjects with a feeling of individuality.*  Naturally this would work even better for a dog, the prime living interface between man and nature.  Whether the golden brown atmosphere around the dog is meant to be straw, or reflected firelight, the effect only reinforces the snug feeling he must be enjoying; we feel it too.

*Did you know Birmingham has a long history as an arts town?  I didn't.  You should read this.

the simple joy of being a pup

thanks wikiart.org (PD)

This fresh and immediate puppy study is from the hand of George Harvey (Scottish, 1806-1876).  Harvey was famed for his close observations of character and detail, as well as his feeling for nature in both large scope (landscape) and intimate scope (portraits of people and animals).  As he was painting during the years of the Romantic style, I'm not surprised by the freedom of his approach, but I do very much enjoy it.  The Romanticism of the United Kingdom did tend to be of a closer, more personal scale, a look at Nature as you yourself engaged with its small daily representatives - your children, your farm, your horse.  Here's a very readable essay about this art movement, which is one of my favorites, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.