Art, Animals, and Experience by Sutton, Elizabeth;

Short description:

Elizabeth Sutton, using a phenomenological approach, investigates how animals in art invite viewers to contemplate human relationships to the natural world.

Long description:

Elizabeth Sutton, using a phenomenological approach, investigates how animals in art invite viewers to contemplate human relationships to the natural world. Using Rembrandt van Rijn’s etching of The Presentation in the Temple (c. 1640), Joseph Beuys’s social sculpture I Like America and America Likes Me (1974), archaic rock paintings at Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, and examples from contemporary art, this book demonstrates how artists across time and cultures employed animals to draw attention to the sensory experience of the composition and reflect upon the shared sensory awareness of the world.

"This book asks readers to take another look at the ways in which animals are represented in art and, in so doing, raises some important ethical and aesthetic considerations."

– J. Keri Cronin, Brock University

"Phenomenology has taught us much about how artworks trigger our perceptual capacities, but its ability to teach us about the possible ethical relationships between viewer and artwork has been less explored. In this original and thought-provoking study, Sutton explores such a possibility through the framework of the representation of dogs in art. Through such exploration, Sutton shows that our empathy with animals—and their empathy with us—has much to tell us about our empathy with artworks."

- Matthew Bowman, University of Suffolk

Table of Contents:

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Relational Ethics and Aesthetics

Being and Thinking With Art and Animals
Between Presence and Absence 
An Ethical Art History

Chapter 2. Dogged Flesh: Rembrandt’s Presentation in the Temple, c. 1640

Real and Represented Dogs
Rembrandt’s Three R’s: Radical, Reflective, Revelatory
The Rhetoric of Etching
Fleshly Experience
Past Made Present

Chapter 3. Glances with Wolves: Encounters with Little John and Joseph Beuys

Entangled Encounters
Seeing and Being with Little John
Presencing Other Worlds
Imaginative Empathy
Gathering Together in the Gap

Chapter 4. Glimpses into the Unknown: Contemporary Taxidermy and Photography

Spaces Between: Yellow and Taza
Respecting Unknowns
Dominance, Submission, and Freedom: Inert and Progression of Regression
Death and the Object (Ars longa vita brevis EST)
From Hierarchy to Horizontality

Chapter 5. "We Are All Connected": Experiencing Art and Nature at Horseshoe Canyon

Guided by Dogs and Children
"We Are All Connected"
Dwelling with Dogs and Earth
Accessing Histories with Attentive Care
Art and Earth as Places of Emergence

Chapter 6. Caring for Art and Animals