Poepende hond 1840 - 1880

This quick sketch of a defecating dog was made by Johannes Tavenraat in the 19th century. While seemingly simple, the act of depicting such a mundane, even vulgar, scene carries symbolic weight. Consider the dog, an animal often associated with loyalty and domestication. Here, it is stripped of its noble status, reduced to its most basic, animalistic function. This juxtaposition can be traced back to ancient satirical traditions, where the grotesque and the everyday are used to critique societal norms. We find echoes of this in the medieval grotesque figures, where the base and the sacred are disturbingly intertwined. The image, however, is not merely a crude joke. It taps into a deeper psychological space, where repressed desires and anxieties find expression. The act of defecation, often hidden and taboo, is brought into the light, challenging our sense of order and control. This image, in its own unassuming way, reminds us of the cyclical nature of existence.