DAY 212

PHILOSOPHY OF ART

Animals, Art, and Consciousness

WHERE ARE THE LINES?

“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

—George Orwell

Creativity and art are typically thought to be exclusively human domains. We see lots of beautiful patterns in nature, and animals do some pretty clever things, yet we usually don’t consider such occurrences to be art. We also tend to assume that non-humans do not appreciate art. My cat doesn’t seem to enjoy Mozart any more than the sounds of the trash truck outside.

We don’t talk about beauty as art unless it’s created on purpose by an intelligent mind. But what about the behavior of some more sophisticated animals, like the elephants that we see on page 16? They hold paintbrushes, dip them in paint, and carefully produce clear, recognizable images on canvas. Is it art? In one sense we say yes, but a skeptic might say no, arguing that the elephants have no concept of art but are simply trained to reproduce the creative acts of their human trainers. We can then point to the studied work of gorillas and chimpanzees who willfully paint pictures of their companions and surroundings, sometimes from memory. At that point it seems silly not to call their work art.

When we see art created and enjoyed by animals other than humans, it raises a whole bunch of really tricky, touchy issues. When an ape draws a picture and conveys an abstract understanding of its content, we are immediately faced with major arguments not only about consciousness, but ethics, anthropology, and even theology. It’s just another way art gets to the core of who we are and what we believe. —CKG