The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

The examples just cited show that representations of animals have been
considered significant not only for the investigation of past attitudes towards animals but
also for the role of animals in exploring social as well as art-historical issues. That the
significance of animal representations has been realized even further in recent years is
evident from their featuring in a broad range of no less critical issues such as gender,
politics, religion, and also ethics. 12
Alphonse Toussenel’s earlier remark that “civilized society can no more dispense with cats than with
prostitution”: A. Toussenel, L’Esprit des bêtes: Zoologie passionelle (Paris, 1855) 228; translation Rubin,
Impressionist Cats and Dogs 19, n. 16. Contrary to the association of cats with prostitutes, little dogs were
considered attributes of working-class women and their prosperity. For an example, see Renoir’s painting,
Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-1881; it depicts Aline Charigot, a dressmaker and Renoir’s mistress
and future wife, playing affectionately with a small and long-haired dog: Rubin, Impressionist Cats and
Dogs 94-95, fig. 73. As for the emotions displayed by little dogs, the story that King Charles I’s spaniels
had cried as the king was beheaded was a popular one among French Victorians: J. Robert, Le Chien
d’appartement et d’utilité: Education, dressage, hygiene, maladies (Paris, 1888) 94. The story recalls
Homer’s assertion in the Iliad (17.437) that Achilles’ horses cried for him. For a detailed discussion of
animals in nineteenth-century France, see K. Kete, The Beast in the Boudoir: Petkeeping in Nineteenth-
Century Paris (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994), and for that in contemporary England, H. Ritvo, The
Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1987).
12 The bibliography on the modern realization of the importance of depictions of animals in the study of
different societies and cultures is not vast, but is constantly growing. For a general introduction to the
subject ranging from Renaissance to modern case studies, both literary and pictorial, see the collection of
essays by M. S. Pollock and C. Rainwater, eds., Figuring Animals: Essays on Animal Images in Art,
Literature, Philosophy, and Popular Culture (New York, 2005); for a discussion of representations of
animals in contemporary visual culture, see the collection of essays in N. Rothfels, ed., Representing
Animals (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2002); also S. Baker, Picturing the Beast. Animals, Identity, and
Representation (Urbana and Chicago, 2001); and J. Burt, “The Illumination of the Animal Kingdom: The
Role of Light and Electricity in Animal Representation,” in L. Kalof and A. Fitzgerald, eds., The Animals
Reader. The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (Oxford and New York, 2007) 289-301. As for
the ancient world, see the section on animals in art in B. J. Collins, ed., A History of the Animal World in
the Ancient Near East (Leiden and Boston, 2002) 79-211; For images of animals associated with beliefs
about gender in nineteenth-century France—women compared to lionesses and pantheresses and men
thought of as lions and tigers—see N. Finlay, “Eros and Sadism: Delacroix’s Depictions of Animals Eating
People,” in N. H. Bluestone, ed., Double Vision: Perspectives on Gender and the Visual Arts (London and
Toronto, 1995) 21-37, figs. 1.1-1.10; for a discussion of images of animals enabling rulers to demonstrate
their political power and its reach with examples drawn from ancient Egypt, China, the Hellenistic and
Roman worlds, and also the Renaissance all the way to the eighteenth century, see M. Belozerskaya,
“Menageries as Princely Necessities and Mirrors of their Times,” in Morton, ed., Oudry’s Painting
Menagerie 59-73, figs. 1-9; also for an extension of her discussion into modern times, The Medici Giraffe:
And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power (New York, 2006). For a discussion of animal
representations playing an important role as archetypes in religion, see C. Manes, Other Creations:
Rediscovering the Spirituality of Animals (New York, 1997); also for an example of a recent study focusing
on a specific religious tradition, with reference to both its literary and visual animal imagery, see R. C.
Foltz, Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures (Oxford, 2006) 65-82. Finally, for paintings and
photographs of animals depicted along with their owners and their children as evidence mirroring a
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