Chimp (and Elephant) Art

When he served as curator of mammals at the London Zoo, animal behavior expert Desmond Morris studied a chimpanzee named Congo, who loved to paint.

 

According to Wikipedia, Morris “observed that the chimp would draw circles, and had a basic sense of composition in his drawings. He also showed the ability of symmetrical consistency between two sides of a sketch; when Morris drew a shape at one side of a piece of paper, Congo would balance the structure by making marks on the other half of the paper. Similarly, if a color on one side contained blue for example, he would add blue to the other side as well to keep balance.

"(Congo) soon began painting; the patterns he made were never distinguished, pictorial images, but usually of a vague "radiating fan pattern" in the abstract impressionism style. Between the ages of two and four, he produced about 400 drawings and paintings.

"Through that time, Congo developed a familiarity with his routine painting sessions with Morris. When a picture was taken away that he didn't consider complete, Congo would reportedly begin to scream and 'throw fits'. Also, if the ape considered one of his drawings to be finished, he would refuse to continue painting even if someone tried to persuade him to do so. 

(Video link)  "In the late 1950s, Congo made appearances on the British television show Zootime, which was presented live from the London Zoo by Desmond Morris. He died at ten years of age in 1964 of tuberculosis.” 

(Video link) Other zookeepers since have worked with orangutans and elephants in addition to chimpanzees. In this video, one keeper says that  “different species are encouraged to paint in different ways.”


With elephants, the handler holds onto the ear and uses it like a joystick to steer the trunk remotely for painting a pot of flowers. Above is a painting by a "guided" elephant named Boon Mee. 

Congo the Chimpanzee (Wikipedia)
Previously on GurneyJourney:
"Gorilla Portraits"
"Animals are not Fauvists"

Ginsburg and Gurney next Wednesday

If you live in the mid-Atlantic area of the USA, there will be two free presentations this coming Wednesday, September 12, in two different places at more or less the same time—so you'll have to choose!

The first is a portrait painting demonstration by Max Ginsburg at the Baum School of Art in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I've painted with Max, and it's a treat to watch him work, and to listen to him talk about his decisions at each stage.


I hung out with Max last night at Garin Baker's studio in Newburgh, New York, where Max is teaching a three day workshop on figure painting. Max showed us his portrait painting video, which documents one of his portrait demos in three hours of real time.

The other event this Wednesday is a talk that I'll be giving at the Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, starting at 2:30. I'll be talking about creating realistic paintings of imaginary worlds, and my presentation will be followed by a book signing.

If you live in Savannah, Georgia, I'll be speaking at SCAD, Savannah on the 17th.
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Max Ginsburg Demo
Ginsburg video website
Gurney talk at Montgomery College

End of the Song

Here is a classic love story, painted by E. Blair Leighton, called "The End of the Song." 

A handsome harpist woos a fair young princess on the balcony of a palace. She has set aside her embroidery and listens shyly to his songs and overtures. A coil of honeysuckle, symbolizing love, happiness, and new opportunities, ascends the column at left. 

Unseen to them, a crowned figure returns from a walk in the forest. Evidently her father, he strokes his beard as he considers what to do about this turn of events. 

But that's not how E. Blair Leighton originally painted the picture in 1902.

An earlier version shows the girl's father with a more stern countenance. His hand is ready to unsheathe his sword. Will he slay the young man, or at least to chase him off by threat of violence?

When E. Blair Leighton was still a student, a piece of advice he took to heart was, “In art it is never too late to alter your work if it is wrong.” The change of the king's face and hand makes a huge difference. But is it an improvement? Which version do you prefer? (Assuming both were in full color)
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ADDENDUM Sept. 10: The poll closed with 190 votes in favor of the artist's first conception (hand on sword) versus 200 votes in favor of the revised version, seen in color with the man stroking his beard.

Several blog readers noted that the scene is unmistakably from Tristan and Iseult. As Matthew Mattin pointed out, the Wikipedia article "mentions several elements of the legend that appear in the painting, most notably an episode in which King Mark attacks Tristan while he is playing the harp for Iseult. But it is also part of the story that King Mark and Tristan, his nephew, love and revere each other, and that the love between T and I was induced by a love potion, resolving them responsibility to some extent and complicating Mark's options in response. So both the violent episode and the ambiguous context are true to the story. "

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Biography on ArtMagick
Thanks, Barry Klugerman

From the reference files

Sometimes the photo reference is more entertaining than the final painting.

I'm posing as Arthur Denison. From Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara. The book is still currently available at Amazon, but the publisher's warehouse is sold out, awaiting a reprint. We have signed copies here at the Dinotopia Store.

Drawing with My Nephew

I have a nephew with Down Syndrome, and I once sat beside him and drew pictures. 

I don't get to see him too often, but the last time I spent a few days with him, I showed him how to draw a building with windows and doors. He understood the idea right away.


Drawing unlocked something in him. Each morning, even before he had his breakfast or listened to his favorite music, he needed to draw a tall building and fill it up with windows.

I'm not sure exactly what drawing buildings meant to him because he couldn't verbalize it. But he reminded me of what a powerful experience it is to create a world on a piece of paper.

Galloping Horses

The way artists painted running horses changed forever once artists saw photos by pioneering photographer Edweard Muybridge.

Horses move their feet so quickly when they’re galloping that it’s impossible to isolate an individual phase of the action by observation alone. So it’s understandable that artists painted them with their legs held out hobby horse fashion. The painting above is by Alfred de Dreux from 1857.

Muybridge took his first fast-action photos in 1878, but they only became known in Paris in 1881, when Leland Stanford arrived with Muybridge and his lantern slides of running horses. 

According to Gerald Ackerman, “They were first shown in a sort of primitive movie machine, at Meissonier’s house, and Gérôme was among the guests, as were Degas, Bonnat, Moreau, and other artists.”

After that time, artists changed their way of seeing things forever. It's impossible to "unsee" something as visually compelling as Muybridge's photos. Today, the way we see and imagine the world is bound to be influenced by time lapse, slow motion, movie visual effects, and MRI photography, just to name a few ingredients of the visual stew we consume daily.  

From “The Life and Work of Jean-Leon Gerome
” by Gerald Ackerman.

Previously on GJ: Action Poses and Photography

Degas' Dancer Photos

Line of Action

I'm not going to write a whole treatise on the "line of action" because the veteran Disney animator Preston Blair already did.

From his book Animation: Learn How to Draw Animated Cartoons (How to Draw Series 26), which has been republished as Cartoon Animation .
You can also find versions of it online.

Reality vs. Screen Illusion

Rob Legato creates visual effects for big-budget movies.


(Video link) In this TED talk, he shares how he created effects sequences for Apollo 13, Titanic, and Hugo. In the first two cases, actual documentary film footage exists of some of the scenes he was visualizing. The real footage served as a reality check against the cinematic invention.

One of the surprising revelations is that our sense of what looks real is greatly influenced by the emotional processes of our memories, which reorder reality into a composite fiction.

That emotionally tinged version of reality is what moviemakers need to bring to life if they want to create convincing illusions. The same general principle applies to painting. Often it's necessary to go beyond optical or photographic realism in order to achieve psychological realism. It's the difference between mere accuracy and true believability.
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Rob Legato on TED: The Art of Creating Awe

Soft Robots

Soft robots make use of pliable structures instead of hard forms like gears, pistons, and hinges.


(Video link) Engineers can now design flexible artificial creatures inspired by the octopus, earthworm, starfish, or jellyfish. Most prototypes move by means of air pumped into sectional chambers. Although the current soft robots are small and clumsy looking, tethered to their air supplies, they have a striking "alive" quality.


A new paper in Science magazine demonstrates how they can change color for camouflage or display. Other morphing blob-like bots can squeeze through narrow spaces.

Whether the soft forms are used alone or combined with hard forms for armor or skeleton, these breakthroughs suggest new possibilities for concept artists and mech designers who are trying to dream up organic-looking artificial beings.

Imagine creepy slug-bots, graceful gas-bag air floaters, or (ahem) sexy robots.
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Image from Innovation News Daily
For other striking advances in robotics, check out:
Big Dog
Nano Quad Rotors

At the Edge: One Week Left

There's just a week left of the exhibit "At the Edge: Art of the Fantastic" at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania. The show has turned out to be one of the most popular in the museum's history. 

The organizers have said there will probably never be a larger or more comprehensive museum show of imaginative artwork in our lifetimes. It covers the field from its nineteenth century forebears to the 21st century. The fun is over September 9.
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See the reviews on the blogs Underpaintings and Lines and Colors