Dogs And Art

'When, in 1978, Henry Moore exhibited two dozen major sculptures on the lawns of Kensington Gardens (an ugly visual assault of insufferable arrogance), accompanying every one of them was a notice forbidding the touch of human hand, but curators had forgotten the interest that dogs would inevitably show in them, taking them to be objects on which they must deposit urine. My bitches were not alone in this; every passing dog lifted his leg to add to the palimpsest of urinary calling cards, and every bitch hitched her buttocks as high as she could to leave her dribbling trace. I have often wondered ever since if, when returned to the pastures of Much Hadham Henry noticed a change in the patination here and there: convinced that the first emptying of the bladder in the morning, richer in nutrients than the later emptyings, produced the very best of natural patinas Matisse (another occasional maker of bronzes) kept his fresh casts in his garden, sometimes for years, so that he could pee on them.'-Brian Sewell from the book 'Sleeping with Dogs'.