Cultural transmission in animals is well accepted, but what about art produced by wildlife? Do animals produce art?
Hi Marcel;
Thank you for the question. I am not an animal behaviorist but a fanatic amateur of animal behavior reader/observer. Australian bowerbird's nesting behavior is a fantastic example of 'art work' created by animals, let alone dancing and singing performances of many other species. As far as I observed, nature wants us to be attracted to the more impressive, as well as more good looking objects, species, even spouses. It might be related to survival of the fittest (and the more beautiful/beauty conscious generations:))The behavior of bowerbird is like many others' to attract the female. He has to create some kind of beautiful, colorful and creative artwork in front of his prepared nest for winning her heart (over competition)
Here is D.Attenborough's documentary about this phenomenon. I am looking forward to 'real animal behaviorist' colleagues; :) inputs to provide us with other examples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA
Dear Leyla,
Perhaps people would call this examples of cultural transmission, but would scientists accept the terminology animal art, and if not, why not?
See the work of Chris Herzfeld, with Wattana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLkYNiEizcQ
She made "necklace"
Hi Franck,
that's the observation. Now the interpretation, please! Is it culture, art, crafts work, tool making, playing, occupation, solving problems, working, behavioural activity, risk taking.....
Well, we have to ask then :'what is art?" If art is expressing your self using colors, voices, movements etc in an aesthetic sense and to demonstrate your 'skills' to get attraction, applause, and/or self satisfaction rather than just 'need', or if you can meet your needs in such 'beautiful creative, colorful and or musical way, I think that should considered art as much as a baby/little kid taking colors and painting some surrealistic or semi realistic pictures. Or not?
Well, maybe not the babies but elementary school children even kindergarteners could I guess. That's another beautiful point Marcel. On what cognitive level does art start ? Maybe we should go from there. That will bring the difference between a cat randomly walking on piano keys or a chimp smearing a board with paint and a bird deliberately choosing leaves to create a color harmony.
Marcel, interesting question. There is huge gap between art works created by artists and works performed by animals, which do not involve such novelty and originality of styles in their performance. With all my respect to animals, they can reproduce, or do something with instincts, but cannot create pieces of art. In my opinion also babies cannot do it, because creative process demands awareness of creation.
Yes, absolutely, Beata, I did not mean the small babies, that's why I mentioned 'awareness'. Also, surely there is a huge gap between animals and humans' achievements, I did not mean the birds can be little Picasso's:)). Animals can 'learn' a second language , for example, it does not mean that a dog starts to sound like a cat, however, they can learn to 'read' each others communicative codes. We should assume that human art is created in cognitively more complex level, but this does not mean that this bird does not see the different colors and brings them together randomly, I guess. They might reproduce via basic instincts, but how does a bird choose colors differently and tries to make his nest "look" good if it did not have a sense of beauty? We might have to ask first, do animals have a sense of beauty and aesthetics? If yes, the collage these birds are bringing together could maybe be considered art, animal art for sure, not in the same level :)
Hi,
There are many beautiful things in nature produced by animals or plants or natural events. How should we name these phenomena? Art of plants or animals or fingerprints of God?
One of my colleagues today said that 'animals might create those beauties due to survival instinct'. I asked: "And humans?" Is creating art, a form of self expression not related to a sort of survival instinct too? Why do WE express ourselves? What is our purpose? Either to be understood, to share our thoughts concerns, perceptions, object, rebel, educate, demonstrate our thoughts, and last but not least to be 'appreciated' recognized, valued, using our "gifted being'' and creative talents and having a place in our "out of society", whatever we aim to survive.. And so does the bowerbird. :))) It wants to show that it can 'create' something more attractive, aesthetic and ornamented than other 'guys'. Above mentioned 'fingerprints' might have made humans superior with time but this, so I think, should not "devalue" the sense of beauty of 'so called 'lesser' creatures.
Marcel do you see where this conversation is going to ? :) Thank you again. Great question ! I am still thinking whether I am right or not ?
Perhaps there is the possibility to split up the question from the perspective of the art producer and the art receiver.
How or when is art produced. For instance:
Does an art product, like a human-made painting, result from artistic liberty (e.g. the art product and it's characteristics is wanted), logistic constraints (e.g. availability of material), biological constraints (e.g. arm and hand design holding the brush, eye characteristics influencing perception) or environmental (e.g. light) conditions at the time of creation? Logistic constraints, biological constraints or environmental conditions will determine how an animal will produce a painting or another creation, but what about artistic liberty and motivation to produce it.
Why is art produced: If the goal of art is to seduce others or change the mental state of others, I would conclude that bower birds decorating bowers express artistic liberty influenced by logistic constraints (availability of material to decorate bowers), biological constraints (e.g. perception characteristics influencing characteristics of objects used to decorate bowers) and environmental factors as in humans.
I can only agree :) Being a 'practical' person or a "Bohemian" and almost a biblio-phobe academic [you can guess it from the simplicity of my language :( ], I can only figure things out by observing and experiencing myself.I had the same ' bowerbird instinct' while producing my stand- ups and TV shows, songs, and sketches. Not necessarily to seduce the other gender (it rather worked other way round since men are not willing to accept female humor easily and perceive it as threat ! especially in my home country) but influence and impress the society I had been in, and gain attention/reputation. That was MY survival instinct.
You are right, whats art for human and animal. How art is developed. If we go back to the start of life and look to the art in the beginning, we can see the difference, human is more dominate than animal and animal is more nature related than civilization and technology.
To answer that you'd have to know what art is!
The context of Art is quite often an expression of opinion/point of view . For example, some people argue (and never agree) whether a splash of paint randomly splatted onto a canvas is art or not . Thus what is or is not 'art' is essentially an individuals opinion ,i.e. - What is Artistic has no right or wrong scientific answer ( science can answer why we have art, from a evolutionary perspective) .
So, do closely relatived animals ,such as chimpanzees, have an imagination in order to express Art! . We could place a brush in a chimps hands and see what he/she paints .But even if the chimp was painting what the chimpanzee perceived to be was an enjoyable picture of a banana. Enjoyment ,pleasure for no other reason than for the self gratification of freely expressing her/his imagination , would we homo-sapiens be able to judge if the painting was 'chimpanzee art' or not? ,since we as a species can't agree what is art or not!. Hardly a controlled test! .
Can another animal be artistic? ,If it can be shown that chimps or other animals have an imagination, then yes . Can humans though, comprehend another species art work?, is another question. Are human brains so far removed from our animal relatives , that we can only see instinct
in their actions . To objectively measure something outside of our own brains is a contradiction in terms. Ultimately the final tool used to process all our scientific data is our brains .
Humans perceiving art as a human only form, could be humans reading something into shapes,patterns,structures ,colours etc. that is not there ,i.e. – Human Art is not special in the animal world ,we just imagine it to be for our own gratification . We and other animals have evolved to make meaning from patterns in order to survive .We even imagine patterns where there are none .
Some people call this randomness ,Art,others do not and prefer structure. Either way, it's our individual preference that choosers what we attach artistic meaning too or not .
Animals of the same species show individual behavioural characteristics ,thus they have individual patterns of activity within their brains. How much they perceive of this individuality is very difficult
to measure . Though I do believe there will be some standard tests that could show that some animals can perceive that they are individuals .Surely if an animal can perceive that it is conscious ,a feat of comprehension that we do not as yet understand our selves,it can also choose what it perceives to be a nice pattern and arrange it's acorns in a pile that is pleasing to the eye, in a method that brings more order into the squirrels habitat (Squirrel Art ;-).
It is evident that what is called art differs among human observers. Some aspects of what people call 'Art' are not always considered 'Art' by some ('Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder' also applied to animals in the framework of sexual selection). Perhaps 'modern art' also presenting very simplified expressions has been invented and promoted to popularise art, making it more accessible to any human citizen?
If we have a look at the science literature, humans and animals share some terminology (e.g. physiology, chemical components, cultural evolution, personality, etc.) but do not share other terminology, and there is no apparent consistency how or when animals and humans share terminology in biology-based expression. For instance, what people call 'dancing' in humans (an example of artistic expression) is often called 'displaying' in animals. On the other hand, it is easily accepted by scientists that both humans and birds sing (another example of artistic expression in humans). Why is anthropomorphism scientifically more accepted in Physiology than in Behaviour? Any ideas?
In nature there are full of art.....falling rain drop on the water of the pond...rainbow...changing colour of cloud in the morning and evening...
Is not these are the art of nature...
Of course I agree with all of you guys..see the amazing art of Dolphin in the below link.
http://www.arthereandnow.com/do-animals-make-art/
If you enter 'animal art' in Google Scholar, you end up with more than 3 million hits!
One example mentioning animal art in the title of a scientific publication is indicated below:
Jared Diamond. 1986. Animal art: Variation in bower decorating style among male
bowerbirds Amblyornis inornatus. Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 83, pp. 3042-3046, May 1986
Dear Lijo,
I think that what the dolphins did is incredible! How to explain this from a physical point of view?
Dear C.,
A sunset may create fantastic human emotions. Can a sunset be called 'art'?
Dear C.,
so you would hypothetically claim that the 'consequence of a perceived phenomenon' (a feeling or emotion) is more important than the 'creator of the perceived phenomenon' (human, animal, nature) to define art, also accepting that any living or other being is an expression of nature? At a spiritual level, is a sunset is the creation of an invisible spiritual force, a sunset could also be called art?
@Marcel...really very difficult to explain...Dolphins might have a sort of imagination...
Animals are significant parts of nature and we have been debating on how mathematics is innate to nature or human construct, but in most of the points, huge parts of mathematics are performed by nature and we humans try to unlock that work through model creation and validation. Among the several fascinating activities animals do are arts and mathematics, splendid web designs of spiders for instance. One example to mention on a sophisticated mathematics performed by a flying bird that picks its prey. The bird uses not the shortest distance between itself and the prey, but instead it chooses the shortest time path called the brachistochrone to reach to its prey - which is the best strategy to catch a fast moving prey than the shortest distance, as the shortest distance is not always the distance of least time.
Humpback whale songs spread eastward like the latest pop tune
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110414131444.htm
Yesss, definitely animals produce art. Who can compare with a singing bird or a nest making bird? Some nests are so skillful and intricate that we are astounded at the sheer art involved. The pearls, the shells on sea shore, the backs of some insects, the colors and designs on the wings of butterflies are all examples of beautiful art. The ant hills, honey bee combs are other examples. I can go on and on :))
Hello Jaya,
scientists claim that bees dance. Another example of artistic expression?
Of course! Dancing, chirping, wood clipping, burrowing, weaving are various forms of art:))
Marcel,
Since doing science is a form of art then all scientists are already artist in their science.
Hello Louis,
so you would nor hesitate to claim that every human activity could be defined as art? They are all creations one way or another...
Marcel,
I would call art all form of activities that requires mastery of difficult skills. Washing the dishes is not an artistic activity. If a scientist just do routine activities that require not much skill, then this scientist is not doing art. But if the scientist stuggle at solvling challenging problems then it is an artistic activity. The toddler learning to walk is doing an artistic activity. Kids are constantly struggling to master skills and it is why they are so creative.
Hello L.
'I would call art form of activities that requires mastery of difficult skills'
This would imply that for at least one individual every potential human activity of which people can think about might be a difficult skill and therefore could be defined as art at the individual-specific level.
- If people genetically received the capacities from another person (a parent) to master difficult skills, is this (always) art?
- If people financially and logistically received the abilities to develop and ultimately master difficult skills, is this (always) art?
Marcel,
An animal/human activity is artistic if it requires creativity/learning in the process of trying to accomplish a task. It implies that doing the same activity after mastery it, is not artistic anymore. When you were a todler, trying to walk was artistic. It is not the case presently but if you become disable it might become artistic again. If you do a task by following a procedure, it is not artistic according to the above defiinition. This definition is usefull but superficial because it is based on the fuzzy notion of creativity/learning. In the case of the whale collectively creating/learning new songs we do not understand the task being accomplished. There is certainly one but we have to understand what music do for them and for us.
Art is here defined from the perspective of the creator. In modern art you can have very simple creations that can sometimes be produced by children.
If we accept that everything in nature is unique in physical expression there is continuous creation of new things of which some are more or less impressive from the perceiver point of view.
Why does art end up in a museum? What is the relative importance of the creation (e.g. focusing on novelty) versus external perception (focusing on massive change of individual feelings) point of view.
Marcel,
What is socially agre to constitute art are objects or performances which are outer expressions of artistic activity in order to create a market. It is important for this market place to control what is from what is not artwork. This is bull shit. Art is experience as Dewaw was saying.
I fully agree that art is experience, which implies that the same object/creation can be art for some and something else for others...
People can walk in an art museum perhaps ignoring (the vast majority of the) creations exposed. If there is too much, they don't stop to watch and admire...
Marcel,
There is the art we do and there is the artwork of other we perceive/enjoy/consumes. We never see the art of others only their artworks. Market is an intersubjective evaluation of artworks. Not of art which is a personal experience.
Hello Louis,
Why do we never see the art of others? I saw my father and mother painting and drawing??? Do you mean: art is defined as the personal experience of creating artwork, and this personal experience can never be perceived or felt by others?
Marcel,
I reserve the word ''art'' for ''art process'' and use the word ''artwork'' for the product of the ''art process''. Your father's and mother's painting are their artworks. Your appreciaction is your own art/learning not their.
If we are to view art as aesthetic attraction or experience then animals certainly do create art:
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/08/mysterious-underwater-crop-circles-now-with-video/
and architecture:
http://nebzyl.blogspot.ca/2011/10/bowerbirds-architecture.html
If art is viewed outside it's social/ humanistic construct and instead as the ability to produce an aesthetic experience/reaction (positive or negative) then the consideration of animal art is easier to discuss rather than debating the clichéd question "what is art?"
Dear Scott,
the pictures of constructions you show amaze me, so it must be art, at least for me.
No. Animals may produce creativity, but not art... art includes creativity all the time. Creativity does not include art all the time. There is a huge difference between art and creativity,
Sorry CJ, I must disagree... Art is what you value to be as Art...I don’t remember seeing an art show organised by animals... Animals are capable of creativity, not art. Creativity is the capability of a living organism (including a human) to adapt a product to a certain context with an aspect of newness. Art is a bit more than that, but I will not attempt to define it, as many experts have said in the past (read Greene 1995) we are very unlikely to find common grounds for a definition of art. There are 4 concepts that will help you understand my point, artistic expression, creative expression, art and creativity, I invite you to play with them. They all differ as stated in the previous comment. Furthermore, though there is no specific region in the brain dedicated to art, recent neuroscience research demonstrates that ToM neuronal network, may be responsible for creativity in humans. ToM may also be what makes different from the animal world. Science in the field of neuroaesthetics is recent, but it is a field worth exploring.
Music is an human art but also an animal art. Love bird appreciate human music. Whale songs evolve over time. We can enjoy some animal music in the same manner we can enjoy human music. And there are some musicians who are communicating with animals through music. And some animal are very good visual artists. The bower birds males reproduce based on the visual aesthetic of their nests. Bower bird females reproduce with the best bower bird male visual artists. When we look at nature and that our sense of aesthetic pleasure is arised, it is the same aesthetic appreciation that is arised by human art. Human aesthetic creation is human art and nature aesthetic creation is natural art. Look at the the natural beauty of flowers. The plants had to compete aesthetically for attracting the insects and the result is not rivaled by human art.
Nature also follow a process of creation. It is slow, sometime it may take a million years and it does proceed through many species relations but the end results of the process is astonding. It is also marvelous that flowers design for the aesthetic pleasure of insects are also a human aesthetic pleasure. This is a testimony of our deep belonging and not our estrangeness to this planet.
Perhaps creativity is an observation whereas art is an interpretation of what creativity can be? The same creation can be interpreted as art or something else, e.g. a construction?
Example. If an object is found in human archeology, can it be defined as an art object or a tool?
Louis, in your intervention you mix art and creativity, they are not the same. Animals do create, most of the times their survival instinct is linked to their creativity. Human creativity is, at many times, also linked to our survival needs. Art is not always linked to survival, maybe this is what makes art...? I don’t believe we can have a consensual definition of Art, but understanding concepts like creativity or creative expression will help us understand what art is/is not.
Marcel, you clearly understood my point. Art becomes art when we give a certain value to creativity (as stated previously, art is art because you say it is). This value can be presented in many forms... because the object is old, at other times it is our aesthetic common senses that give value to creativity, thus turning it in to art. In other cases it is not the object that is valued as art but its creator; examples like Marcel Duchamp and modern art fall in this category. But this discussion would take us further away from the initial topic... so the answer is no, animals do not make art as we humans define it to be. Animals are only capable of creativity.
Pedro,
I do not think that I mix art with creativity. Some of our creations are not artistic and do not offer other any aesthetic experience and are simply practical. I classified animal creation as artistic only when they appeal to the aesthetic of other animals.
If the definition of art would depend on the mental state of the creator/perceiver, how can we truly know the difference between the mental state of a human versus non-human organism at the time the object is created/perceived? Is brain research enough to identify this mental state?
Example in poetry
If exactly the same sentence is expressed in an 'artistic' versus a 'non-artistic' context, are the same or different brain regions stimulated?
Brain science is getting there, but not there yet... it is very hard to use fMri in moving animals. Art seems to be a human characteristic. The region of the brain that may bring an answer to your question is called nucleus accumbens and it is related to pleasure... mine is very stimulated right know and we call it science... maybe at a certain level of abstraction art and science are the same, see Solso, R. L. (2005). The Psychology of art and the evolution of the conscious brain.
The capability of artistic and creative expression may be hidden in level of consciousness of the living organism (including humans who have more complex levels of consciousness).
I also invite you to investigate Peak Shift phenomena in neuroaesthetics... lots to be learned there about consciousness.
Video of a tap dancing gorilla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNKyG4C2VlA
Interaction between bottleneck Guitar and wild orcas from I pod occurred in 2002, while an Interspecies' crew was filming for National Geographic off the north coast of Vancouver Island, Canada.
http://interspecies.com/pages/ic_is.html
Bon matin Marcel!
It is a complex question, animals do it for their survival we don’t....but then why did some scientists use the word art to explain some animal behaviour? The main problem with this is how we have been studying art, without distinguishing it from creativity. These are two distinct concepts that have been mixed and confused up over the years.
I believe so, but first you must define consciousness, do you want give it a try?
Pedro,
''consciousness'' is the most problematic word to define and at the same time what this word refers to is the most obvious reality that exists. Most people and many scientists consider that higher animals are conscious , not in all aspects like human are conscious but in most of aspects. For example, most people think that when a dog hurts its leg , it feels a pain similar to the pain we would feel if we hurt our leg in a similar way.
Again and again, scientifically humans are animals and their art is done equally for survival as well as play, no differently than if you closely observe as much other animals. Even an insect has consciousness of curiosity, escaping when in danger, finding food sources, etc., moreso than some if not most human animals.
Louis, here is an answer to the question of life in another post.
What is life?
Maybe there is a problem is the question. As you can see by the multiplicity of the answers life is a multidimensional phenomenon that remains very hard to define in a few words. However, I will argue that a common denominator exists for all forms of life. Furthermore, that life is consciousness, since life cannot prevail without it. Consciousness, reduced to its most common denominator, can be defined by the capability of a living organism (including humans) to make choices. At a larger scale, there are 3 main factors that influence consciousness: the environment, the will to survive and the capacity of choice of the living organism. If you look carefully in nature, generally speaking, the bigger the creature the higher the number choices he/she has. The problem arises when you get to humans, since our environments have changed drastically, our choice capacity is immense and our will to survive shifted in to something else. This shift is observed in neuroaesthetics trough a phenomenon called the Peak Shift Effect. To learn more about neuroaesthetics and Peak Shift Effect I invite to read recent authors in this new and very rich field of science.
I will also argue that not only life is consciousness, but that consciousness level defines your creativity level. Furthermore, that only the higher levels of creativity become what we call art! And that this last category of creativity is only observable in human beings.
Accepting that the scientific method requires that a given phenomenon 'A' should always be defined in the same way, can human art, as animal art, be scientifically defined? For instance, how to decide whether an object scientifically belongs to art when different people have different perceptions of what art should be?
Marcel, for the first part of you intervention, the preliminary answer is yes (since we can find the common denominator of creativity in all art). As for the second part of you intervention, you are getting away from the topic which is animal vs human, not human appreciation of art, this would be a different topic. However, regardless of human appreciation, all forms of art involve creativity, as defined by Lubart (2011), creativity is the capability of realising productions that are at the same time new and adapted to the contexts in which they manifest themselves (Phenomenon ''A'' is now defined'').
See Peak Shift Effect in the field of neuroaesthetics, the answer to your last question lies there. Art is an exaggerated response to a natural phenomenon.
Pedro,
''Life'' is a word like ''consciousness'' it is the the most difficulty type of word for science but it is the most easy word for children and adults that have not been scientifically enculturated. It is because these word are allergic to precise conceptualisation because they point to realities underlying our conceptualization capacities. Since both ''Life'' and ''consciousness'' are scientific mystery it is hard to refute the equation ''Life'' = ''consciousness'' . What is evident is naively evident is that we are alife and conscious and that rocks are not alife nor conscious. There are plants such banana trees which are not separated from each other, they are linked and it is impossible to find a boundary between one banana tree and the next one and so it would be hard to separate the consciousness of banana tree 1 to the consciousness of the banana tree 2 next to it. This is only one of the various problems of this equation. I agree that consciousness is intimatly related to capacity of choice of the organism. I see it as the nexus of growth of the organism interaction at the exact locus of failure of the organism automated mode. ''organism'' is also one of these impossible to define word for science but ok for most peoples. Yes the more complex is the organism and the more action modes are available and the more extended in space and time are these action modes and the more the point of failure related to world at large and so the more conscious is the organism. But the transition to humanity is not a continuous one with our closest primate ancestor. There is a qualitative break, and it is the nature of this break that confuse the discussion.
I read a little bit o the peak shift effect and I find this topic not of much relevance to the fundation of art.
No, they don't, you are right. Furthermore, human art travels trough time... we learned to paint and draw way before we could write and today we can envoy creative expression that is more than 35,000 years old. Human art is very specific, yet multidimensional. On its most outstanding differences we notice that not only it stimulates the senses of the perceivers, it does it trough time and space (we could consider landing on the moon a form of human art) and on an uncountable number of perceivers. More often, the value of art is not in the object itself, but in the importance we give to it. As stated by Shklovsky (1988) “Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object. The object is not important (p. 20)”.
Pedro,
Finding differences between human arts and animal arts is not difficult. What is difficult is seeing the similarities, building bridge. It is important since human art had to be build on the foundation of animal art since it is sophisticated animal art. We have to constantly remember ourself our animality. Art is a form of human interaction and so has the two sides: the making side and the resonating side and the two are mediated by the artefact, the artwork, the art object. I like to think of an art object as an occasion of experience. Art is a sharing of experience through artworks or expression. If we observe primates they constantly express what they feel to each other through their body expressions. It is communication but not yet human art because there is no control in the mode of expression so as to fashion a high level of experience in the expression. We do not see body adornment, we do not see dance as a way to impact the other and these expressions are not made for themself, pure enjoyment. When it is pure enjoyment like in play it is not done for the other. (There is a report of a group of apes which dance together in joy when it rained after a long drought.) There is some primates in zoo that find enjoyment in painting in a non figurative way and wich display some sense of aethetic. Some female primate would also adopt a doll as a substitute to a baby for a while in captivity and I saw a report of a female gorilla in the wild carrying a small log as a doll. Using an object as an occasion of experience is in its infancy here. I personally favor the hypothesis that the road to humanity has be a road forster by a collective art form: dancing-singing together for collective feeling control. I think this is our first religion, first language, first politic, first art and that this art produce ourself. Art as a togetherness this is the essence of human art and of humanity.
if a certain audience calls it art - it must be!
When galeries have works "created" by animals on display and critics write about - Then it must be art.
Nothing is art in general - no art for everybody - every art is linked to a certain public.
What are the criteria to define art in general?
1) Visual characteristics that are more or less appreciated by an audience. This can be tested when work is Anonymous and the audience is asked to give their opinion?
2) The mental state of the people that made the creations, e.g. cultural-inspired, financial-inspired, spiritual-inspired, etc.... Because the audience does not have access to mental states directly this criterion cannot be used to define art?
From a practical point of view, we therefore only have access to the visual aspects, and history therefore tells us that animals indeed create art, also based on judgements of art specialists that were confronted with Anonymous creations?
But then again, what are the mental states of the judges of creations? WE do not have access to the mental states of the judges, so we cannot know why an audience claims it appréciâtes a creation, making it even more difficult to define what art actually is from a practical point of view?
Thanks!
Thus, more general, how/can scientists investigate 'art' with rigorous scientific methods?
http://emptyeasel.com/2006/11/18/how-to-judge-art-five-qualities-you-can-critique/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1492463/Art-world-goes-wild-for-chimpanzees-paintings-as-Warhol-work-flops.html
the problem in this discussion are the words "art" or "music" - trough the ages these words have significant changed in meaning (suppose the same for physics - just suppose that the notion of "gravity" as Newton defined it would have changed over time as art has changed since the 17the century! - certainly today scientists approach gravity otherwise but it still MEANS "gravity".
How did the meaning of the word 'art' change in time?
Examples available?
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/art-definition.htm#definition
Some people claim that the meaning of the same art work can change from day to day, e.g. depending on the psychology/mood of the observer?
every meaning has history
every meaning is history
without history there is no meaning
the artist is the master of the meaning of art IF he/she has followers
there is always a public that decides what is art or what it is not.
the history of art is the history of a public = culture
the western canon discovered expressiveness spontaneity even gestuality and abstraction as possible art form -
Thus, without a public that judges creations, art can never exist?
Thus, when we go back to animal art, this implies that the attractiveness of conspecifics towards an individual creation (e.g. a bowerbird nest) is enough to decide whether the creation is art or not art, or do we always need the human observers to decide whether an animal creation is animal art or not animal art?
The (animal) public might be attracted to a creation without explaining why, e.g. curiosity, beauty, social pressures, etc...., so how deciding whether a creation is art or not in these conditions?
Thanks!
An art public means always "people" and never can consist of animals because humans have invented the notion of "art" -
Maybe esthetic experiences can correspond with what animals experience in some cases but - alle esthetics are not art - and all art isn't esthetic.
Maybe there can be something paralel: Scientist should be able to translate the word "art" in animal language (Koko the gorilla understands some English (Prof Penny Francine Patterson)) so that animals could understand and form an animal public. But still - the notion "art" is derived from a human notion.
What art is for animals isn't necessary art for humans and vice versa.
In that case there could be art for- and from- animals - but this "art" still has got to find a human interest to be called "art". That is: a human public.
Some animals have produced paintings that have considerable succes - but I don't know if the other animals like it...
;)
Interesting that a physical creation can be defined as 'art' versus 'not art' depending on who created it (human versus non-human)!
Marcel,
The bower bird male artistically build his nest. The public are the bower bird females and they will reproduce only with the creator of the most beautiful nest. So we can see the bower bird nest building as an art show and the next generation of bower bird is produced from the winners of this art show. We have here a species whose criteria of sexual selection is artistic/aesthetic and this species survived so far. Maybe we should learn something from it.
Willy,
The first public of an artist is himself/herself. For sure all artists hope that their art please other than themself but that can only comes after the creation. It is true that an artist constantly created and will tend to goes in directions where their art resonates more with other. But case of great art that was not appreciate during the life of the artist are well known. But case of bad art that was hugely appreciate during their life time is also known. But great and bad is also relative to the geist of the time although some art become perrenial classic of humanity.
Art is expression and expression is communication and communication has a resonating public. But it is not an instanteneous process and the public may comes much later. Not all forms of expression are artistic and not all art is great art. The only way for a great art to be conserved and to not fall into oblivion is for it to be selected by a resonating public of multiple generation. So all perennial classical art deeply resonated to the hope of humanity. Because what deeply please us is what we deeply wish and yearn for but do not know until a great artist tell us.
In the case of the bower bird there are several potential artistic expressions: the bower as a physical construction (architecture), the bower as a theatre, and the display (dance, act).... and the audience attracted to/impressed by what?
Dear Marcel,
This is not wat I said.
Humans make the difference for human - as for animal made art.
What the art appreciation of animals is concerned that's quite an other problem - (if there is any)
Best regards,
Willy
Yes, of course. Animals (e.g. pigeons) can discriminate between human-made painting styles, but it will be more complicated to provide evidence for preferences in choice experiments, for instance
Dear Louis,
Your are right. Nelson Goodman formulates it as: WHEN is art.
- Art and artists come and go.
But in the end the public decides
- in fact it should be plural:
the "Art Worlds" as Howard Becker puts it.
There are also "unconscious artists": patients, or artists of the past, or the makers of the Altamira Cave Paintings (34-15000 BCE), Lascaux cave paintings, -ethnic artists, and also animals -
it all depends on that moment in history where a group of people is gathered around the notion of: "this is a work of art!"
best regards,
Willy
Anyway, this is a very interesting question Marcel puts here!
I was also thinking about the research Frans De Waal does concerning teamwork and psychological conflict within animal communities.
Some animals could also have a "religious notion"?
- we don't understand them enough thats for sure!
Speaking the language of animals has been the most ancient of dreams.
Until now nature and animals were approached as economic- or life resources, not as entities - let alone as spirits, or personalities. (a dog, a cat, an ape, any animal can have a personality, a temperament a character.)
May be the whales sing for fun, or for beauty
- no music can match the song of a blackbird!
An interesting field of research that's for sure! Succes!.
Best wishes
Willy
Applied art and animal behaviour: Will an animal cage with human art (e.g. the painting of a landscape) be less stressful than an animal cage without human art? Will any human art (e.g. any painting of a landscape) reduce stress in a captive animal? There are already hints that classical human made music influences physiological processes in non-human beings (e.g. increased productivity), so why not a constructive contribution from visual human-made art in animal welfare programs?
Ants have their hierarchical social and command system . They follow a kind of art of warfare for their survival. They also follow certain art/ science for preserving their food for bad times.The birds follow a kind of aero-dynamic pattern ---a fine-tuned art--while flying from, say, Siberia to India during winter. They follow a certain pattern and time, and reach the destination at the stipulated time and go back to their home almost at their stipulated time. Birds, while taking a long flight, moves gliding for a long distance, without even fluttering their wings. This is a very fine art. The Bees collect their food from different trees and flowers , keeping the sun in certain angular direction and and come back to their hives following another route. The process involves a beautiful ---dancing- art in the process. The queen sitting in the hive controls such an art or adventure. Bird's nests or bees' hives are some of the epitomes of master-class arts.
Thus, in certain conditions, any activity per se can be defined as art, whatever its origin?
No. To produce art, it must to exist reflex in creator's mind.
How do you know that reflex in creator's mind does not exist in animals?
Dear Professor Lambrechts
Nowadays, there is not evidence about creative reflex in animals, is there?
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