“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 believe that, embedded in the primate brain, there might be a set of universal aesthetic principles.18 Schiller had presented Alpha with a series of experimental cards, which were pre-marked with geometric figures. These cards seemed to suggest an awareness of design and pattern, and Morris resolved to attempt to replicate those findings.
In November of 1956, Morris wrapped his hand gently around Congo’s curled pink fingers, pinning a pencil between them, and rested the graphite end on a scrap of paper. Morris released Congo’s hand, and the chimpanzee made his first drawing. It was immediately evident to Morris that Schiller’s work was valid. As he watched, Congo ran the pencil again and again over a splotch of ink near the center of the paper.
17 Morris, Desmond. The Biology of Art. New York: Knopf, 1962. Print. p. 22.
18 Morris, p. 21.