Stephanie Copoulos-Selle
Often, we look at images of gardens, landscapes, and interiors and see flowers, trees, or furniture. Dogs might be present in many of these images but they are often not the primary focus. Dogs are so integrated into our lives and landscapes that they are often overlooked. But the fact is, images of dogs are ubiquitous throughout art history.
Dogs have a long history with humans. They were some of the first domesticated animals. They helped humans as guard dogs, shepherd dogs, and search dogs. Dogs have long had a special bond with humans. Stephanie Copoulos-Selle spent hours in the UWM Libraries, where she found stories and images of loyalty, friendship, heroic deeds, and the compassion of the pet dog. Some books were even written from the point of view of the dog, showing his grief for a dead owner or sympathy during times of loss.
Copoulos-Selle used the resources she found to create an animated movie showing dogs throughout history using art historical sources. The dogs “jump out” of their image and time and run in packs through other historic periods. Sometimes they remain in a different image and time. The movie begins in Ancient Greece and travels 2000 years ending in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Most of the images were found in the in the art history section of the stacks of the UWM Libraries, in the Digital Collections, and in the John S. Best Collection in Special Collections. The Best collection included books from the 1800s to the twentieth century. The early books include exquisite linear drawings of dogs.
When one views dog images in books the sizes are relatively the same dimensions - one cannot discern the actual size of the dog depicted. The “Dog Wall” in the exhibit brings attention to this problem of representation. All the dog images are the same size – six inches. The text of the breed’s name is printed in small to large font sizes to represent their relative size. For example, the Maltese text is a twelve-point size and the Mastiff is 312-point size.
The Dog Frieze consists of relief prints of a rabbit and the dogs who appear in the movie. After working with the dog images for over a year they took on personalities - they needed to leave the movie and join our world.