Artistic Differences

Dear Dog Lady,

I’ve always been an admirer of William Wegman, the photographer. Wegman’s Polaroid portraits of Man Ray and Fay Ray, his Weimaraners and their successors, are some of the most creative, absurdist, compassionate photos of dogs ever taken. Although Wegman dresses up his dogs in human costumes and poses them in unnatural settings, the surreal photos have always struck me as among the most of brilliant expressions from a dog lover.

That’s why I was so disheartened when I read a recent interview with Wegman in the New York Times magazine. The interviewer asks the artist about his least favorite variety of dog and Wegman, who now has four Weimaraners, replies: “I don’t like the little dogs. I have an aversion to anything doggy. The first dog I bought was a Weimaraner, and they aren’t really doggy. Even though they’re dogs, they’re not doggy dogs.”

Dog Lady, small dogs take a lot of bum raps but it’s the first time I’ve heard them dissed as “doggy dogs.” That the insult came from William Wegman is most disheartening. What’s a “doggy dog?” Do I have one? My pet is a Lhasa Apso.

Peter, Brooklyn, NY

Peter, on the dog-o-meter you’ve got a small fry. Why should this bother you? Wegman is entitled to his temperamental rants. He’s an artiste. Weimaraners are objects. https://www.greatmodernpictures.com/wegman1lg.jpg

The dogs stir his imagination in the same way Parisian prostitutes inspired painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. http://www.yurimarcialis.it/impressionisti/lautrec/1.jpg

Just because you’ve idealized Wegman as an expansive wag-man doesn’t mean his art is diminished by his loutish views about small dogs. He doesn’t get a creative jolt by decorating a Lhasa in a gingham dress -- just as Toulouse-Lautrec wasn’t fired up to paint nuns in their wimples.

Dog Lady shares your frustration about the phrasing of “doggy dogs’’ Psst, Mr. Wegman, hate to tell you but a Weimaraner is a “doggy dog” like any other. If it sniffs like a dog, marks like a dog, steals table scraps like a dog, and sleeps like a dog, it’s a doggy dog.

In that same interview, didn't Wegman also brag about his huge car, a studly SUV? Hmmm. That should tell you something right there.

Wegman sees his dog muses as a breed apart. Indeed, the Weimaraner, with its yellow opaque eyes, looks like a blank canvas compared to other dogs with more expressive mugs.

Wegman is not alone in his bowser bias. Weimaraner owners tend to take macho pride in their noble breed. Alas, Dog Lady is a softie for all those loopy doggy dogs who grumpily pose for pictures in their shaggy birthday suits. http://www.rubylane.com/ni/shops/armagh/iteml/1326

Posted by Dog Lady at September 30, 2003 03:29 PM