Monika Hug

Anyone who has ever had a dog knows this look. It's the one they give you when they can tell something is wrong, and they have decided they are not leaving your side... This beautiful painting is called Fidelity, and it was made by British artist Briton Rivière in 1869. A young man sits in the corner of a cold prison cell, awaiting trial. He is a poacher, caught taking game in an age when that could ruin a life. And pressed against his knee, gazing up into his face, is his dog, who has followed him even here. You cannot see the man's face, Rivière hides it so that the entire emotional weight of the painting falls onto the dog. We are left to read the man's sadness in the animal's eyes. The dog knows nothing of poaching or laws. It only knows that its person is hurting. And anyone who has ever loved a dog knows that look: "I don’t understand what has happened, but I know you are sad, and wherever you go, I will go too." The cold, the fear, the locked cell, none of it matters. Leaving him was never even a choice... That is the meaning of the title Rivière chose for the painting: Fidelity. Faithfulness that asks for no reason and no reward. As American humorist Josh Billings once said: "A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself."