Primate Aesthetics

Sailors fighting in the dance hall Oh man! Look at those cavemen go It’s the freakiest show Take a look at the Lawman Beating up the wrong guy Oh man! Wonder if he’ll ever know He’s in the best selling show Is there life on Mars?   —David Bowie1   Sitting as still as I […]

The origins of human pictorial behavior are obscure, but a few hypotheses exist to explain our seemingly unique impulse toward representation and aesthetic behavior. A convenient outline of the evidence for a biological basis for art,2 as well as its proposed explanations, has been assembled by David P. Barash.3 Quoting Brian Boyd,4 Barash defends an […]

In 2009, five cynomolgus macaques looked at a 17 inch computer screen, and looked away.13 Cynomolgus macaques, known by several aliases, including crab-eating, or long-tailed macaques, are perhaps best identified by their scientific name, Macaca fascicularis. These Old World monkeys have long, elegant tails, as their common names suggest, and they enjoy the water, often […]

“During the first few months its only functions appeared to be biting, eating, screaming and urinating…” Desmond Morris writes of Congo.17 Yet over time, a highly productive collaboration would develop between the zoologist and the young chimpanzee. After being exposed to the work of Paul Schiller and the female chimpanzee, Alpha, Morris had come to […]

In the June 22 Issue of Science, a glowing review of The Biology of Art appears: The most striking artistic productions are the multistage colored paintings achieved by giving Congo one brush after another, each loaded with a particular color of paint.  This technique made possible the entrancing colored pictures, some with radiating fan patterns […]

It was at the Primate Behavioral Management Conference that I had the opportunity to hear Brenda McCowen speak. Her presentation, “Using systems network analysis for understanding complexity in primate behavior management,” outlined a way of thinking about the world that instantly resonated with me. McCowen studies complex systems through network analysis—a method she contends is […]

Over the course of the two years Morris worked with Congo, he became increasingly convinced that the young chimpanzee was creating compositions that demonstrated advanced aesthetic principles. He began comparing the drawings of the chimpanzee that Schiller had worked with, Alpha, to Congo’s experimental results, and he found that they shared certain characteristics: 1) drawings […]

From September 17 to 21, 1957, the London Institute of Contemporary Arts held the exhibition Paintings by Chimpanzees.21 Sir Julian Huxley, famed evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and good friend of Desmond Morris, gave a speech at the opening of the exhibition. He later wrote about a curious incident between Congo and Desmond Morris. “Once when Dr. […]

Artists have had access to monkeys, whether in their own menageries, or those of their patrons, for centuries. And those monkeys, as a matter of course, had access to art materials. Yet no paintings or drawings executed by non-human primates prior to the twentieth century survive today. However, I came across a tantalizing anecdote23 that […]

In 1997, Thierry Lenain, a senior lecturer in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, published the book Monkey Painting. Lenain was familiar with Desmond Morris’ work with Congo in The Biology of Art, but after conducting his own research into the field of primate visual behavior, he had […]

At the age of eighteen, Desmond Morris was idly wandering the stacks of the library when a book caught his eye. When he unshelved it and scanned its pages, Morris stumbled across a host of macabre etchings; dismembered bodies, demonic creatures, violence, and death were suspended in time on each page. Goya’s The Disasters of […]

I was first introduced to the concept of an embedded art practice by the work of Frances Whitehead. Over the years she has applied her skills as an artist to many fields outside of the art world: public works, land and water remediation, architecture, and city planning. And in her role as an embedded artist, […]

In 2005, three paintings by Congo went up for auction. The works sold for $25,620—outselling works by Renoir and Warhol at the same event. Indeed, the lot outsold Morris’ own artwork, the highest price realized at auction being $17,656.38 I wonder how Morris feels about Congo’s artistic success. I think he must be proud, because […]

A man in a gorilla suit sits at an easel. As zoo visitors look on, he swivels his painting around. It’s not very good. The visitors look away, then look back. The painting is a new one, a blank page scrawled with the word “help” in red paint.40 40 Just For Laughs Gags. “Painting Gorilla Prank.” […]

When the iPad was clamped to Kayla’s foraging board, she threatened with an open mouth and a series of outraged grunts. She reached out and touched the screen, painting her first stroke. Her indignation was soon replaced with intense focus, and she painted more and more, until the surface of the composition was covered with […]

In Bastrop, Texas, there is an adult male chimpanzee who enjoys painting. Unlike Congo, this particular chimp does not mix all available colors to produce a uniform brown,41 so he is given access to a full palette to use at will. He works carefully on a composition until satisfied; then to “finish” it, he loads […]

He began the session as he had many times before. He produced several paintings with his favored movement: starting at a point on the page far from himself, he drew the paintbrush toward himself, repeating the process until he had created a fan shaped bundle of brushstrokes. Over the course of two years, he had […]

Introduction Studies of pictorial behavior in chimpanzees suggest that drawing and painting are self-motivated behaviors that can be used as a form of enrichment.44 While previous studies have established credible links in visual preference between macaques and humans,45 very few studies have engaged with the picture making behavior of macaques. This is partially due to […]

Last summer while browsing a used bookstore, my finger came to rest on the medium gray spine of a book entitled Monkey Painting.49 Curiosity piqued, I pulled it. On the cover was a photograph of a chimpanzee in a high chair. The combination of this bizarre image and the apparent misnomer50 of the title had […]

During one of my thesis meetings, my advisor asked me what I wanted to do after I graduated. “I want to teach. Art, probably,” I said, “but, I really like science. So I’m torn as to what to do next, frankly.” She thought for a moment, and then she said, “There’s a conference you might […]

At the closing banquet for the Primate Behavioral Management Conference, I was seated next to Brenda McCowen. I wanted to tell her how exciting her work was to me, but I was also nervous that I might not understand it fully, or that I might embarrass myself by oversimplifying. But my advisor was also there, […]

In Monkey Painting Lenain argues that any results we gain from the pictures created by non-human primates are not useful, because we have placed the primates in an artificial scenario, and the pictures they make are dictated by the tools they are given and not by the animals themselves. In the wild, he argues, primates […]

By the end of Morris’ work with Congo, he was certain that Congo had achieved the “diagram stage” of human pictorial development.55 The few small circles that he was able to “snatch away” from Congo before they were obliterated and the strange phenomena of the “reverse fan” convinced him that Congo could form a mental […]

Over the course of my research and experiences, many more threads and connections became apparent than I could possibly do justice to within the confines of this thesis. Indeed, any one vignette could be expanded into the basis for another entire exploration. And yet, this thesis is a small disconnected node in the field of […]