elephant painting

[jts]

Ear tug signals? Elephant memory?

[jts]

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_elephant_painting.htm

Analysis: The video is real, but it's important to note that the elephant painting this "self-portrait" -- a male by the name of Paya who resides in the Maesa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand -- has been painstakingly trained to produce this image, and may even be receiving off-camera hand or voice directions from a "mahout," or trainer. As animal expert Vicki Croke explained in a video interview with Newsday Live, "If you put a canvas in Paya's barn and gave him two weeks he would not have painted that elephant. He's been trained to do that."

[BaalChatzaf]

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_elephant_painting.htm

Analysis: The video is real, but it's important to note that the elephant painting this "self-portrait" -- a male by the name of Paya who resides in the Maesa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand -- has been painstakingly trained to produce this image, and may even be receiving off-camera hand or voice directions from a "mahout," or trainer. As animal expert Vicki Croke explained in a video interview with Newsday Live, "If you put a canvas in Paya's barn and gave him two weeks he would not have painted that elephant. He's been trained to do that."

don't human artists take art lessons?

[caroljane]

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_elephant_painting.htm

Analysis: The video is real, but it's important to note that the elephant painting this "self-portrait" -- a male by the name of Paya who resides in the Maesa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand -- has been painstakingly trained to produce this image, and may even be receiving off-camera hand or voice directions from a "mahout," or trainer. As animal expert Vicki Croke explained in a video interview with Newsday Live, "If you put a canvas in Paya's barn and gave him two weeks he would not have painted that elephant. He's been trained to do that."

don't human artists take art lessons?

Exactly. Elephants are mammals like us - not that far removed genetically. Who is to say they don't have some kind of aesthetic instinct?