Elephants can paint

I was having a discussion with some friends over lunch the other day, and the topic came up about elephants being given paint brushes and a canvas on which to paint. Apparently the elephants are creating great works of art. Prior to this conversation I had never even heard of the concept of an elephant painting but I was interested in the topic when I learnt of it. I later did a Google search and found that there is a National Elephant Institute in Thailand which has people who are devoted to developing elephant art. It is believed that the elephants are aware of what they are creating and the only assistance they receive is from a human who loads the specially modified brushes (modified so that they can hold the brush in their trunk to paint), hands them to the elephants and reloads the brush with paint when the elephant runs out. However the colours used for the paintings are chosen by humans, so the only thing that the elephant really does is paint the brush strokes on the canvas.

I have had a look at the elephant art gallery online and, aside from the fact that an elephant has painted the particular picture with its trunk, I don't see anything remarkable about the paintings. To me they are just painted lines on a page. I am however amazed that the elephants know what to do with the paint brushes and can contain their brush strokes to the canvas, I guess the only thing that disappoints me is that elephant doesn't choose the colours itself. Since it is a human who chooses the colours, it seems to me that it is a human deciding what colours would look best together on the canvas, the elephant is really just the means of getting the paint onto the canvas. It is for this reason that I don't consider the elephant paintings to be art, even though the fact that the elephant can perform this task is fairly remarkable.

If you are interested in viewing some elephant art check out The Elephant Art Gallery website.