Considering most of us have lifelong experiences of loving animals, it's surprising there is no art category designated especially for them.

That motivated me to research and write an article about animals in art. This month's piece will feature horses, cows, dogs and cats. Next month, we'll look at wild animals, birds, fish and fowl.

Let's start with the horse which, it seems, has enjoyed the lion's share of attention from artists past and present. Horses filled important functions in ancient civilizations and were also admired for their beauty. That's true today as well.

A superb example from the distant past is the bronze sculpture, Flying Horse, done by Lei Dai, of the Gansu Province of China, Han dynasty, 2nd century (from Art Forms, Longman Publ. NY, 1999).

Other sculptures of majestic horses, some mounted by famous men, can be viewed in many cities. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, atop a bronze horse, dominates Rome's Capitoline Hill.

Other art forms have also featured the horse. A 16th century engraving by Albrecht Dürer -- The Knight, Death and the Devil -- is noted for its complex rendering of the titled scene.

As for paintings, a long list of artists have memorialized the horse. One is George Stubbs (1724-1806). In her book The History of Painting (Dorling Kindersley, N.Y., 1994), Sister Wendy Beckett writes that Stubbs' 1762 painting Mares and Foals presents "a tender view of nature at its most inspiring."

Rose Bonheur's mid-18th century work, The Horse Fair, is a realist painting by an artist who won many awards despite the challenge of competing in a male-dominated profession.

I must also mention art featuring the horse in a sporting role. Paul Gauguin's Riders on the Beach (1902) and Edgar Degas' Jockeys Before the Race (1878-79) are examples.

Next we consider the lowly cow. The cow had been all but invisible in art until a Dutch artist, Constant Tryon (1810-1865), motivated by cows he'd seen in landscapes, began to feature them. His 1856 work, Cows Grazing, stimulated others and they became popular art subjects in households.

In modern times, folk artists such as Grandma Moses have used cows in their artistic endeavors.

Let's move on now to man's best friend, the dog. Dogs were the first animals ever to be domesticated. Since then, their popularity with humans has never waned. In art, dogs first appeared in landscapes and genre scenes such as Joseph Turner's Mortlake Terrace (1826), but rarely were the focus of a painting.

An English painter, Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73), popularized animals both wild and domestic. For A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society (c. 1838), Landseer received a Grand Medal of Honor from the Salon of 1855.

Artforms (Addison Wesley Educational Publishers, Inc., 1999) reproduced a picture by an Italian painter, Giacomo Balla (1871-1958), known as the founder of futurism. The painting, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1959), is one in which "movement is suggested through rhythmic repetition."

The Totteridge Eleven, painted by Arthur Wardle in 1897, shows eleven fox terriers posed in the English kennel that bred them. (Encyclopedia of Collectibles, Mario Buatta, Time-Life Books, 1978).

Cats happen to be my favorite domestic animal. Thus, I was disappointed that they were practically missing in my references. I did find a cat painting by Suzanne Valadon, mother of the artist Maurice Utrillo. Titled Les Deux Chats, it would charm any cat lover.

And Theophile Steinlen's Tournee du Chat Noir (1896), contains nearly a hundred photos and some pencil sketches of cats, along with anecdotes and general information about them.

Another example is Elizabeth Coatsworth's The Cat Who Went to Heaven (The Macmillan Co. N.Y., 1930). In it, the lovely drawings of a cat and other creatures featured in the text are the work of the noted illustrator, Lynd Ward.

In addition to art, photography and sculpture, these animals have had their forms designed into jewelry, printed on cloth and fashioned into decorative objects -- toys, dishes, pillows, etc. And they all have been stars in the movies.

The Horse Fair, by Rose Bonheur (18th century). 

Riders on the Beach, by Paul Gauguin (1902).

A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, by Edwin Landseer (1838).

Cows Grazing,
by Constant Tryon (1856).