It has to be a hoax, right? I didn’t see anything on Snopes.
That’s pretty incredible but I can believe that it’s true. The flower painting is blowing my mind, as it represents a pretty remarkable level of abstraction.
The reason I say this is that a recent National Geographic article states:
BBC article from almost 2 years ago on elephants painting self-portraits.
I can believe it. If that video is legit, then wow.
Where the hell do I buy an elephant?
Interesting… I didn’t realize that elephants were a member of that exclusive club of self-awareness.
That is bloody awesome. The mind reels at the implications.
Call me an old skeptic but I don’t believe this for a moment. One of two explanations present themselves - video fakery or subtle keeper guidance.
Check out all the other Youtubeclips and semi-documentaries on this phenomenon on the Web then. I believe it.
I’m surprised anyone is willing to talk about the elephant in the portrait.
I’m skeptical. I don’t believe the video was faked, but I do believe it would be possible to train or direct an elephant to paint. I’ve seen a chicken play the piano, so why shouldn’t an elephant, with its much more sophisticated brain and precisely controllable trunk, be able to be trained how to paint a portrait? At this point I’m not willing to believe that the elephant came up with the portrait spontaneously.
What does it matter if it’s spontaneous or trained? That’s a neat painting either way!
They receive “positive behavioral training”, and you’ll notice here that each elephant paints the same basic theme over and over. Hong is the elephant in the video, and as you can see, his painting for sale is almost the same as the painting in the video.
I’m not impressed. That’s pretty lousy painting.
Did you read the article to the end?
I’ll vote for not really understanding what it was doing.
From that link:
Not as fun as thinking the elephant has an imagination, but still, pretty neat trick.
“How well the dog can dance is not so remarkable as the fact that the dog can dance at all.”
s/dog/elephant/g
s/dance/paint/g
Do you guys really think a lot of HUMAN ADULT “artists” aren’t doing the same thing? 
Seriously, I taught classes at a senior center where the little old ladies chewed my ass because I wouldn’t reduce making art to a Step 1-Step 2-Step 3 process. That’s what they were used to, it’s what they wanted; a clear process leading to a predictable outcome.
Go look at the art magazine section at Borders sometime.
Donna Dewberry has it down to “One Stroke”.
Bob Ross (on PBS) does the same thing. Or, rather, did, since he’s deceased (which is somehow not mentioned on that website). Lousy paintings, but I love his voice.
Shoot, at least the elephant doesn’t know any better - people ought to (or at least they could).
Not all the other clips on the whole web, though I’ve checked the first few couple of hits from a youtube search for “painting elephant”.
There wasn’t a single one where
[ol][li]the camera did not closely zoom in on the more sophisticated movements[/li][li]a trainer does not stand right behind the elephant’s ear, always on the opposite side from the camera[/li][li]the elephant is visible as a whole but doesn’t do anything except holding the brush with a rather confused look or just standing around doing elephant things[/li][li]or when unmistakingly independent movements are shown, they are simplistic sliding motions or repeated splotches that clearly lack the artistic refinement as exhibited in the kind of scenes described above[/ol][/li]So yes, elephants are intelligent and sentient beings that deserve our respect. And they play around with paintbrushes (free play is considered a sign of intelligence), sometimes with artistic results. Like this or this or even this after learning the motions. I’ve no trouble to believe this.
But assuming an elephant creates an abstract image of another elephant, by its own intelligence and by its own free will? That’s a stretch, isn’t it.
Wait…?
I think that’s one thing I didn’t need to know…
First the dancing walrus and now the painting elephant? My dog is looking less impressive every day!
It’s actually a fine example of contemporary Fauvism.
That’s obviously what’s happening.
Here’s another clip of the same elephant with the same trainer painting the same picture using more or less the same sequence of strokes, handing the brush to the trainer at the same points in the sequence. Only, in this one, you can see what happens when the elephant knows it’s at the end of the routine, and goes immediately to get a reward of some food.
It isn’t a self-portrait any more than a picture of doggy would be. From the BBC of two years ago:
It’s still amazing how dexterous an elephant’s trunk is.
Since they can’t use the elephants for logging now, they have a bunch of them in this reserve, with nothing to do, so they train them to do tricks for tourists, including painting. It’s a clever idea for making money. They probably charge a lot for those paintings.