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 me reshelving the book until my eyes came to rest on the italicized white text below the title, “with an introduction by Desmond Morris.” What I had almost dismissed out of hand had gained a sudden validity.
Oddly enough, I had first encountered the work of Desmond Morris in a similar circumstance during my freshman year of art school. A trade paperback copy of The Naked Ape caught my eye while I perused the small science section of the Montserrat College of Art library. It was dogeared and careworn. Standing in the stacks, I flipped through it, taken in by the novelty of human behavior described David-Attenborough-style, like a TV wildlife special.
Back in my dorm, I read the whole thing in an evening. I read and reread certain sections that I felt had practical applications: interpreting intention from aggressive displays before fights, the fascinating rituals of human attraction. It was like a veil had been pulled away, exposing the underlying biology of heretofore puzzling human actions. It changed my life. I thought Morris was a genius.
Seeing the name of my hero on the cover of Monkey Painting, I bought it without even opening it. It sat on my bedside table, unread, for months.
Casting about for a thesis project, I eventually recalled that odd book on my bedside table. I flipped through it, and was amazed to find vibrant color plates inhabited by dramatic calligraphic brushstrokes. The paintings were beautiful. Hooked, I turned back to the Introduction. In the first sentence, Desmond Morris mentioned the title of a book he had written that I had never heard of: The Biology of Art.51 I immediately placed an interlibrary loan request.
49 Lenain, Thierry. Monkey Painting. London: Reaktion Books, 1997. Print.
50 Chimpanzees are apes, not monkeys.
51 Morris, Desmond. Introduction. Monkey Painting. By Thierry Lenain. London: Reaktion Books, 1997. Print.