The aim of this article is to explore the meaning of the term ‘contemporary’ when it is no longer identified absolutely with the chronological now. This occurs through an analysis of the position and place and role of dogs into Renaissance paintings. The aim is to show that the extent that a concern with the animal, in addition to the potential for the animal’s disruptive presence, are taken to be contemporary, then paintings that evince such positions and projects can be taken as having a contemporary register. The works analysed are by the Master of the Augsburg and Titian.
Andrew Benjamin (Wed,) studied this question.