Primate Aesthetics

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. […]