While many consider spray-painted graffiti as a nuisance, if not vandalism (see left), graffiti is increasingly gaining recognition from the world of art as a legitimate form of art. Serious galleries in New York and London are displaying this form of expression, and artists are often commissioned to do legitimate murals. Graffiti has probably always been around, but graffiti historians (yes, there’s such a thing) regard a high school kid from Philadelphia named “Cornbread” to be the first modern “tagger.” He started tagging city walls in 1967 to get the attention of a girl. How far we’ve come. “Banksy,” a modern era and rather famous graffiti artist has had his work shown at Sotheby’s in London, and celebs like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have purchased his work for a not-little-money.

NPDD pays attention to graffiti when it’s of purebred dogs, and there is a lot of such work out there to be seen. The one below appears in Italy and is attributed to Mauriz1984. If you can, enlarge the photo and take a look at the detail.