The Halcyonite

By Defne

’23

Have you ever thought about what the meaning of the word “art” is?

We find it hard to define, yet are able to identify art when we see it. Many philosophers have defined it as a product of humans made with the set intention of aesthetic appeal. When we look at the origins of art, we can see that it started off mostly as a method of communication, but it can be debated whether these origins count as art themselves. To Oscar Wilde, art is created to be beautiful and nothing more, it doesn’t have a practical use. If we base our judgement from this point of view, we can say that art is only art if it has evolved to the point it has in today’s society, and its origins such as cave paintings cannot be considered art themselves.

But how did we come to produce art? There is an explanation to many properties of humans, however the emergence of art is a broad concept to study and involves a lot of subjectivity. I think we can all agree that a nervous system is compulsory for the existence of art, but at what level of complexity do we actually see this phenomenon occur?

One approach to this was the study of art in primates by Ignace Schretlen. Schretlen observed that orangutans had similar scribbling ability to human toddlers, as they stayed inside the lines and filled the entire page, indicating that they have a sense of composition. But he argues that drawings by primates or toddlers cannot be considered art because they do not have clear intention and are not influenced by culture. Moreover, neither toddlers nor apes try to create original drawings with their own style and they cannot draw different perspectives when commanded to. Nevertheless, these findings may be one of the steps in the evolution of art, as toddlers do grow up to further develop their skills to the point at which they can make art. This supports the argument that the emergence of art is exclusive to humans.

On the other hand, Bernd Heinrich proposes that art is not a uniquely human ability. Many animals can also recognise beauty and attempt to produce something beautiful themselves, such as the songs and nests of birds. The aesthetic appreciation associated with such examples are of course related to mating and the survival of a species but according to Heinrich, the same can be said for the innate aesthetic preferences of humans. 

Furthermore, Charles Snowdon’s study on cats’ response to cat music (designed by David Teie to fit in with their preferences of lower pitches and tempos similar to meowing) versus human music also suggests that animals may have an appreciation of beauty. However, there are hardly any methods to measure if this works in the same way it does with us, not to mention cats cannot actually produce this music themselves. 

In the end, many examples of aesthetic practice in animals come from instinct, lacking intention and originality. We accept that art has to be conscious in practice; the artist produces a beautiful product for the sake of its beauty, including a unique train of thought and interacting with the culture of a community. Thus looking for the biological roots of art through other species, who do not produce art in this sense, offers us only a small window to judge from. 

Consequently, Darwin’s idea that humans are just apes with larger brains falls to question, if our brains are so structurally similar, how do we end up with complex phenomena such as art? It is true that at the surface, size seems to be the main difference between human brains and other animals, yet at a cellular level things are different. For example, in the primary visual cortex of humans, the organisation of nerve cells is structurally different and more complex than that of apes. Moreover, the production of a nerve connecting protein is a lot higher in humans, compared to other species with a nervous system. This means more complexity, explaining why such an emergent property is unique to us. 

Diagrammatic illustration summarizing factors that contribute to the uniqueness of art practice in human societies. By Dahlia W Zaidel

However, another issue arises with this anatomical explanation, as art objects by modern humans are recent compared to their appearance in the fossil record. Therefore, we can conclude that art doesn’t only arise if the neural preconditions are met. Perhaps it also requires environmental factors such as structured societies as its development is a gradual process. Hokusai suggested that his art becomes more art as he ages. Maybe this applies to a larger context and art becomes more art as societies develop…

All in all, like the very nature of art, how it came to be also remains complicated, its origins as blurry as its definition…

Bibliography

“Can Apes Make Art?” Radboud Universiteit, http://www.ru.nl/@1168967/can-apes-make-art/. Accessed 5 Apr. 2022.

Furness, Dyllan. “Est-Ce Que Les Animaux Peuvent Apprécier L’art ?” Www.vice.com, http://www.vice.com/fr/article/d38zwz/est-ce-que-les-animaux-peuvent-apprecier-lart. Accessed 5 Apr. 2022.

Heinrich, Bernd. “The Biological Roots of Aesthetics and Art.” Evolutionary Psychology, vol. 11, no. 3, July 2013, p. 147470491301100, https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491301100316.

Premack, D. “Human and Animal Cognition: Continuity and Discontinuity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 35, Aug. 2007, pp. 13861–67, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0706147104.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Grey. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Zaidel, Dahlia W. “Art and Brain: Insights from Neuropsychology, Biology and Evolution.” Journal of Anatomy, vol. 216, no. 2, Feb. 2010, pp. 177–83, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7580.2009.01099.x.