Primate Aesthetics

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 […]