The Painter and His Pug by William Hogarth

''The Painter and his Pug'' is a 1745

self-portrait Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

created by

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraving, engraver, pictorial social satire, satirist, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from Realism (visual arts), realistic p ...

featuring his pug dog,

Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

. He began the portrait a decade earlier. The portrait was originally created with the intention of Hogarth wearing formal attire, but was changed to the informal attire sometime during the painting process. In the portrait, Hogarth himself is in a painting as the

pug The Pug is a breed of dog with the physically distinctive features of a wrinkly, short-muzzled face, and curled tail. An ancient breed, with roots dating back to 400 B.C., they have a fine, glossy coat that comes in a variety of colors, most ...

is alongside him, making Trump "real" as opposed to the created person. The dog is indifferent to the painting, to the books and to the painting palette (which shows Hogarth's Line of Beauty). So the painting seems to be a

Vanitas ''Vanitas'' is a genre of symbolizing the temporality, transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, and thus the vanity of ambition and all worldly desires. The paintings involved still life imagery of transitory i ...

still life. But, as an ironic disruption, the cloth behind the dog comes out of the painting. The painting is part of the collections of the Tate Gallery.

References

Paintings by William Hogarth 1745 paintings Self-portraits Dogs in art Paintings in the Tate galleries Books in art {{1740s-painting-stub

See also

References