ROBERT ADAMS

From Robert Adams' Why People Photograph - Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture (1994), Section What Can Help, Dogs essay:

WHERE does art begin? Photographs of Thomas Eakins and Pierre Bonnard with their dogs suggest, I think, an answer. For these artists in their old age to touch animals so gently is evidence of a love past memory, one that must have shaped treir lives.
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Artists live by curiosity and enthusiasm, qualities readily evident as inspiration in dogs. Propose to a dog a walk and its response is absolutely yes.
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Art depends on there being affection in its creator's life, and an artist must find ways, like everyone else, to nourish it. A photographer down on his or her knees picturing a dog has found pleasure enough to make many things possible.
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