Animal Art

Turns out we're not the only emo souls in the universe. There are plenty of other artistic, 'tortured' creatures out there, including bower birds, elephants, dolphins, and many primates including orangutans and gorillas. And some of the art they create is, quite simply, astounding.

Really, if you want to make a quick buck, buy a monkey and train it to paint. That's what Desmond Morris did with Congo the chimp, whose paintings recently sold for over $26,000! The buyer was one Howard Hong, who claims he is interested in animal ability to conceptualize abstractly. (I personally think he just wanted to make the news.)

Congo the Chimp lived for ten years, from 1954 to 1964 when he died of tuberculosis. He produced over 400 drawings and paintings between the ages of 2 to 4, which is more than what most of us create in our lifetimes. And, like most great artists, he got rich and famous posthumously. Oh and - if that wasn't bad enough - three of Congo's paintings were sold over zero works by Renoir and Warhol at the same sale. Phew. Take a look below and tell me you wouldn't give your mortgage for a work of art like that...

(I wouldn't. Image taken from artnet.com)

To be fair, Desmond Morris was more of a zoologist, ethologist, surrealist artist and writer and less of a scheming money-maker. He was interested largely in exploring a chimp's ability to create order and symmetry and how that relates to human impulses for creativity and emo-ness. Many went ape-shit over Congo's art. It is believed that, in a fit of professional interest, Picasso got a hold of and owned one of Congo's paintings, while Dali declared "The hand of the chimpanzee is quasi-human; the hand of Jackson Pollock is totally animal!" Furry love trumps all.

While the above may be an excellent example of modern abstract art, there are more impressionist gorillas out there who are already almost famous. Michael and Koko are two such specimens, although Okie is making headway on the popular paint-with-finger artist front. Below are some of the more fascinating pieces I've seen from the animal kingdom.

This is Michael the gorilla's depiction of his friend and 'pet' dog Apple, which he drew from memory, choosing the right colors himself out of an entire paintbox. The actual dog is on the right.

This here is Michael the gorilla's rendition of 'anger'. How do we know that? Well, Michael is one clever boy and has learnt sign language, through which his art instructor requested he draw his feeling of anger.

The prodigal son, Michael, again. With his impressionist piece 'Tree Lettuce' - didn't they ever teach him lettuce doesn't grow on trees? I do love the usage of white space in this one, with varying shades of green to represent both fresh and stale tree lettuce in a 'circle of life' kind of way.

And this one is Michael yet again with his idea of a 'dinosaur'. In fact, while the paint was still wet Michael turned it upside down on the ground and then pulled up so it would give that 'spiky' effect dinosaurs have. Nice.

And finally, something by Koko who leans more towards the abstract. Like most females. It's called 'Bird Red Slice' but I prefer 'Pink and Black Flappy Thing'.)

(All Michale and Koko painting images above taken from

Okie's art can be viewed at the Boston Channel website - the last two pieces, when you drag the slider all the way to the right, are my favorites.

"My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment somewhere." - Steven Wright

It's not just chimps and gorillas though. Elephants also make some real masterpieces, once they've been taught how. And if you've ever taught a second-grade art class you'll know how tough it can be teaching little tykes to hold a color pencil properly, much less a ten-foot pachyderm with giant teeth poking out of its mouth. Gentle an animal though it may be, artistic temperaments and four-foot fangs just don't mix all that well. But elephant art has also been taking off, with Siri amongst the most famous artists in this genre.

There is an excellent article about elephants painting on Salon's online magazine. The article starts off citing a shortage of jobs in the logging industry as a reason for why elephants paint and it just gets better. (That is, in fact, one part of why elephant art is taking off.) The important difference between an elephant and, say, a cat when it comes to painting is the degree to which the elephant is able to manipulate the paint brush using its trunk. There are over forty thousand (40,000!) individual muscles in an elephant's trunk, enabling it to daintily pick up a china teacup and drink from it, put it back on the saucer and pour more tea in from a teapot, without breaking or spilling anything!

This YouTube video of an elephant painting is a bit long but well worth it. I started a double take about a minute in which just got longer and more convoluted as the video progressed, till the end where they showed the finished piece, at which point I carefully unfolded myself and decided to write about it.

The image itself seems to be a formula one they teach many of the elephants but for any animal to even learn that formula is more than impressive. (And if you want to buy some of this elephant art, then head on over to Novica for a look at what's on sale.)