When 27-year-old Giuseppe Castiglione boarded the sailing ship that would carry him from Italy to China, he probably had no idea that he would spend the rest of his adult life there, embraced by emperors and immersed in a culture very different from his own.

Born in 1688 in Milan, Castiglione began studying art as a youth, learning to paint at the renowned Botteghe degli Stampatori studio. There, he was influenced by Andrea Pozzo, a well-known mural painter as well as a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). In 1707, at the age of 19, Castiglione formally entered the order and traveled to the city of Genoa for further training.

A few years later, Castiglione was sent to the Jesuits’ China mission, arriving in Beijing in 1715, another in a wave of Roman Catholic missionaries that had begun flowing into the country almost two centuries before. Between 1552 and 1800, a total of 920 Jesuits from Italy, Portugal and France traveled to China to take part in the order’s work of converting the Chinese to Christianity.

At the time of their peak influence, members of the Jesuit delegation were among the Chinese emperor’s most valued and trusted advisors, holding numerous prestigious posts in the imperial government and working as mechanics, musicians, painters, instrument makers and in other areas that required a degree of technical expertise.

With the ascension of the Yongzheng emperor in 1723, Castiglione’s fortunes changed dramatically: he received an imperial commission for a work later titled One Hundred Horses. Painted on a large silk hand scroll measuring a little more than 26 feet in length, the painting took Castiglione five years to complete and is considered his greatest work. In late 1735, One Hundred Horses was presented to the newly enthroned Qianlong Emperor and declared a masterpiece. Shortly after, Castiglione was named the Emperor’s principal court painter.

Over time, Castiglione, who had taken the Chinese name Lang Shi’ning in the early 1720s, adapted his European painting style to Chinese themes. In doing so, he created a new, hybrid approach that combined Western realism with traditional Chinese conventions of composition. In addition to deft draftsmanship, his process involved the use of discrete European pictorial features and techniques such as chiaroscuro, perspective and brushwork.

The Qianlong Emperor held Castiglione’s artistic skills in high regard, and the Italian spent many years in the court painting various subjects —among them, dogs. According to Kenneth Hsieh of Taiwan’s National Palace Museum (where most of his work is housed), “In 1747, Giuseppe Castiglione is recorded as being ordered to do 10 paintings of fine hounds.” Each dog’s portrait bears an inscription in Chinese, Manchu and Mongolian that provides the dog’s name as well as the name of the official who presented the dog as tribute. The series, titled Ten Fine Hounds, is one of his more famous.

The choice of Hounds as subjects is in keeping with their cultural importance as hunting dogs. By the Han period (206 BCE to 220 AD), an “inspector of kennels” oversaw the raising and training of hunting dogs for the court. In The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History, Thomas T. Allsen describes early Han tomb tiles adorned with images of large, collared dogs “in the typical pointing attitude: the body in a slightly crouching position, neck extended horizontally, and one forepaw bent under and raised several inches above ground.” At the other end of the Chinese canine spectrum were the Pekinese, cosseted companion dogs who for centuries could only be owned by members of the Imperial family. (Interestingly, the results of a DNA study published in 2004 showed that the Pekinese is one of a handful of distinctly diverse breeds— Siberian Husky, Afghan Hound, Akita and Saluki, and others —most closely related to dogs’ wolflike ancestor.)

In addition to his skills as a painter, Castiglione was also in charge of designing the Westernstyle palaces planned for the gardens of the Old Summer Palace. The Castiglione-designed structures were built of stone and brick with an underlying Chinese infrastructure of timber columns, and decorated with colored tiles. Perhaps calling upon skills developed while studying with Andrea Pozzo in his youth, Castiglione decorated the palaces’ walls with trompe l’oeil scenes. The area eventually came to include not only palaces and gardens, but also, aviaries, a maze and perspective paintings organized as an outdoor theatrical stage. Sadly, the buildings were destroyed in 1860 during the Second Opium War.

After spending almost all of his adult life in China, and serving as an artist at the Imperial court of three emperors, Castiglione died in Beijing in July 1766. His fusion of Western and Eastern art stands as an important milestone in the cultural history of China—a time when societies chose to embrace new concepts and explore expanded visions of the world.

Artistic Techniques

Giuseppe Castiglione combined European and Chinese compositional sensibilities, techniques and themes. He employed Western-style perspective; figures were often dramatically foreshortened, and chiaroscuro (shading) was used to heighten the sense of realism. These European concepts were, however, balanced against prevailing Chinese artistic traditions and tastes. For example, because the emperor rejected the use of strong shadowing—he felt it resembled dirt—the lighting in his portraits is subdued and shadows are absent.

Castiglione’s early training in painting large murals no doubt helped him execute the monumental scale of the Chinese scrolls, some of which are as long as eight meters, or a little more than 26 feet. Done on silk using tempera paints, the paintings required detailed preparatory compositional drawings. Unlike canvas, brushwork on silk is almost impossible to remove, and paintings could not be reworked in the European tradition.

After approval, sketches were traced onto the silk, and work began. Castiglione was assisted by a staff of court painters working under his supervision. Though rich in detail and accomplished in their realism, paintings created in this manner lack the spontaneity found in more expressive European-style brushwork.

Ten Fine Hounds

It is said that this series of paintings was commissioned by the Yongzheng Emperor to commemorate 10 dogs presented to the court in honor of the Chinese Year of the Dog. Several are native breeds related to Sighthounds and bear a close resemblance today’s Greyhounds, Whippets and Salukis. One subject appears to be a Tibetan Mastiff, while others exhibit features of a Great Dane and a Foxhound. These types of sporting dogs were highly prized for their hunting skills. Today, the art of the Ten Fine Hounds series is perhaps Castiglione’s most popular, having found its way onto postage stamps and posters worldwide.

The dog lies on a rug in the center of the room, head on the floor, one leg stretched across the train of an elegant white dress worn by the painting’s subject, a young woman comfortably settled in a blue chair. The woman’s head is turned in conversation with the artist, who, from his seat nearby, leans forward, palette in hand. The 1880 painting by William Merritt Chase is entitled The Tenth Street Studio, and is one of the artist’s most celebrated works.

For Chase (1849–1916), this New York studio was the center of his artistic life. In addition to painting there, it was where he held court, welcoming collectors, journalists, students and fellow artists to his ornately decorated and lavishly furnished space. His much-loved dogs were frequent observers of the rarefied mix of theater and ideas that characterized Chase’s gatherings.

The Gerson sisters, Virginia, Alice and Minnie, with
William Merritt Chase, ca. 1880. Tintype, 5 x 6.75 inches.
The William Merritt Chase Archives, Parrish Art Museum,
Water Mill, N.Y., Gift of Jackson Chase Storm, 83.stm.4.

A dog at rest also appears in The Open Air Breakfast (above) (c. 1888), another well-known piece. The garden dog is fast asleep on her side, as though exhausted after a morning of socializing and play. The scene’s casual air is arresting, and provides a snapshot of life in turn-of-the-century American society.

Chase, a prominent member of the international avantgarde, was an inf luential artist and teacher who counted painters John Singer Sergeant, James McNeill Whistler and Winslow Homer among his circle of friends. As a young man, he had studied in Europe, reveling in the rigor of a classical art education. During his six years in Munich, he focused on the masters of European art, and developed a deep appreciation for Spanish, Dutch and French painting. He also became acquainted with a new style of painting that came to be labeled Impressionism.

Upon his return to America, he accepted a teaching position at the Art Students League in New York City, which he embraced with vigor. During his 36-year tenure, he instructed thousands of students—including Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe and Joseph Stella, who would go on to break new artistic ground themselves—as well as championed American art and contributed to internationalizing its stature. Through his art, his teaching and his advocacy, Chase helped usher in a generation of American modernism.

By all accounts, he was an exuberant and generous teacher who introduced a fresh approach to his subject matter and a vibrant use of color and brushstroke. His own landscapes depicting city parks and Long Island beaches are considered to be among the finest examples of American Impressionism.

Photographs of Chase show him as a dapper bon vivant with a well-coiffed beard and an upturned mustache, often dressed in a dark three-piece suit complete with a carnation in the buttonhole. In her book, The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917), Katherine Metcalf Roof described Chase “in his famous hat, accompanied by his almost equally famous Russian Greyhound, which, if not the first Russian Greyhound to be seen in New York, was at least the first one to become a marked character of the boulevards. Indeed, in those days of his bachelorhood there seems always to have been a dog in Chase’s life, usually an English or Russian hound.”

“Before returning to America Chase purchased the beautiful white Russian hound Katti which he used in several pictures, notably the pastel of one of his sisters shown in the sale exhibition in May, 1917. The dog, a fastidious and aristocratic person, spent the following summer with Chase’s parents, where he was the most considered member of the family. They found him rather a trying guest as he refused to eat anything but beefsteak, and they were in constant fear of losing him. He survived, however, to be painted by Chase and caricatured by Church and Blum for several summers.”

—The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase by Katherine Metcalf Roof, 1917

No poor, starving artist, Chase lived well; portrait commissions and teaching provided him with opportunities for travel as well as a comfortable life in New York and summers in the Hamptons. The natural light and rural vistas of eastern Long Island were popular draws for artists of the region, including Chase. In 1891, he helped establish the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art, the first school in America devoted to plein-air (outdoor) painting, near the western edge of Southampton Village.

His life and work during this period are well documented in the holdings of the Parrish Art Museum, on Long Island’s East End. The museum holds the largest public collection of William Merritt Chase art (more than 40 paintings and works on paper) and an extensive archive, including a thousand- plus photographs relating to his life and work, in particular, family photographs of summers spent on the island. Tintypes and blue collotypes (the photographic prints of the day) show the artist in his studio and relaxing at his summer residence. His beloved dogs are ever present; a large, white Borzoi and a dark-colored Greyhound are shown lounging with family members and wandering the countryside and seashore. A white, longhaired Wolfhound named Katti appears in several of Chase’s portraits, often with children. Katti can be seen in commissioned works, such as Portrait of James Rapelje Howell (1886), and in his paintings of family members—Good Friends (1888) and Alice with Russian Wolfhound: Friends (1903).

From the Chase family album:

Virginia Gerson, sister of Mrs. William Merritt
Chase, with Chase’s pet dog, ca. 1880.
Tintype, 6.25 x 3.5 inches.
The William Merritt Chase Archives,
Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, N.Y.,
Gift of Jackson Chase Storm, 89.stm.4.
(above left)

William Merritt Chase with pet dog, Florence,
ca. 1911.
Gelatin silver print, 2.25 x 3.25 inches.
The William Merritt Chase Archives,
Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, N.Y.,
Gift of Jackson
(above right)

This fall, a major exhibition of Chase’s work opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, after a much-lauded showing at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. In early 2017, the show will travel abroad to the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice.

In the catalog that accompanies the exhibition, Erica E. Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings at MFA Boston, sums up the artist’s impact on American art: “Chase is a major figure in late 19th-century American art both for his own work and the attention he brought to the potential of American art during that period.” The breadth of his painting, from striking portraits to evocative still lifes and glorious landscapes, is on full display in the retrospective, which commemorates the centennial of the artist’s death, and is evidence of his important place in the history of American art.

War is hell, the saying goes, and not just for soldiers. The highly trained military dogs at their side pay an equally severe price. Sculptor James Mellick has memorialized these dogs— and through them, the soldiers with whom they served—in a series of seven life-sized works. The Doberman missing a foreleg, a German Shepherd with a prosthetic paw, a Belgian Malinois with a metal plate: as hard as they are to contemplate, these dogs seem undaunted, a testimony to Mellick’s sensitivity and dogs’ innate, in-the-moment nature. Carved from cherry, poplar, sycamore, walnut and cedar, the sculptures came to life through a long process of designing, laminating, carving and finishing. Fine details—the bone structure under the fur; the curve of a leg; expressions conveyed by the eyes, brows and ears—are informed by Mellick’s lifetime with dogs as well as his current canine housemates, a Weimaraner and a rescued Lab/Weimaraner mix.

In his sculptural work, he says, his intent is to “reach a unity of shape and content, so that the secondary forms and shapes within the body of the dog not only serve as symbols of the meaning, but are also important design elements in the composition.”

This isn’t Mellick’s first dog-related artistic foray; he’s been investigating and experimenting with dogs as metaphors for more than 30 years. His first was Stacking Dogs (1985), a 12-foot tower of dogs ranging from an Irish Wolfhound to a Chihuahua, a comment on human arrogance, he says. His Canine Allegory Series (1997) also reflects his belief in dogs as talismans. “I see the dog as a totem animal of humans, a parallel self, if you will, who has the goods on us. Think about the dog’s unconditional love, trust, vulnerability, and the therapy and healing they offer. Look into their eyes and they are either saying ‘I love you’ or ‘What the hell are you doing?’”

He displayed three of the dogs—two German Shepherds and a Malinois—at the 2015 Vietnam Dog Handler Association reunion in Nashville. The veteran dogmen were drawn to them, Mellick says. “The dogs were a big hit, with the guys taking selfies with them, and many, many conversations took place around them. Men were wiping tears away. They released many emotions that had been locked up.” Their reactions aren’t hard to understand. Military dog-team jobs have always been dangerous: detecting explosives, scouting the enemy and taking part in search-and-rescue missions. Many don’t survive, and those who do tend to be deeply affected by the experience.

Mellick feels strongly about our nation’s ambivalent response to the men and women who serve in the military. As he told an interviewer earlier this year, “It’s one thing to be against war, but things really go south when people turn against the soldiers who serve. Young people today put themselves in harm’s way not because they were drafted but because they’ve volunteered. And because there is no draft, many of us don’t see the cost and we don’t feel the pain.”

In Wounded Warrior Dogs, Mellick makes us look straight at things we’d probably prefer to avert our eyes from—he makes us feel the pain and see the cost, both to the war dogs and their battlefield partners.

Wounded Warrior Dogs:
Celebrating America’s K-9 Heroes
Canton Museum of Art Through July 17
cantonart.org

This exhibit has no connection to or association with the Wounded Warrior Project charity.

I began doing sketchbooks in a little 3.5 x 5 inch journal about six years ago. I was already doing to-do lists to keep track of all my nutty daily tasks, and I decided to try to do a painting next to my lists every day if possible. As an art director, turned illustrator, turned art director, I missed painting and knew I’d need to get back in the habit by doing it regularly. I would often start painting with no idea what it was going to be. Buster & Babe, my adopted dogs/children are always by my side in the studio, and are featured often in my drawings and task lists. Buster’s a Jack Russell/Dachshund mix and Babe’s a Wheaton Terrier mix. I enjoy drawing dogs, especially Fox Terriers, Poodles, Bulldogs, and the occasional German Wire-haired Griffon.