Where elephants wield paintbrushes

Lt-Gen (retd) Baljit Singh

It may well have escaped the notice of most art historians and ardent art archivists that the images of five finished paintings reproduced here were conceived and created in one sitting (I beg pardon, rather one “standing!). By five Asian elephants. Yes, elephants! And that a goodly lot of such originals have been on display at the Thai Elephant Art Gallery (TEAG) located inside the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre (TECC) at Chiang Mai since 2003. Whether these works of art belong to the “abstract” or the “postmodern” genera, only art aficionados can make that scholarly pronouncement.

At the mere mention of “abstract” art, the few names that light up at once in the memory of most of us are Henry Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. However, we now know that apart from this celebrated trinity, given a conditioned environment, such as Picasso’s atelier, even some Asian elephants seem eminently gifted to paint such charming and suggestive art creations that can grace the walls of any art collector’s home! According to Issaraporn Kaewthanaswad, the founder-director of TEAG, “Indeed in the early days when we hung paintings by elephants alongside abstract art by humans in our art gallery, about eight out of 10 customers couldn’t tell the difference!”

Elephants, the largest and among the oldest living terrestrial life forms, have been known to occasionally pick up dry branches of trees and create doodles upon paths as they wander. On a closer look, no two doodles are found alike and, around 1980, the scientific community, backed by wildlife enthusiasts in Africa, had arrived at two unanimous conclusions. Firstly, elephants were genetically endowed to doodle on purpose as messages for individuals or herds frequenting that trail. Secondly, elephants also produce gurgling rumbles of ultra low sonic frequencies, totally inaudible to human ears, but ones that are picked up by other elephants as far as 14 km! 

Now the TECC spread over 300 acres of this pristine elephant habitat had come into being in 1990 and houses up to 500 elephants needing care till rehabilitation in the wild. In time, this initiative of the late King Bhumibol Adluyadej became one among Thailand’s prominent tourist attractions. And, in 1998, two Russian tourists and practicing artists, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, happened to visit the TECC and chanced upon an elephant doodling in the dirt.

On closer examination, they found extraordinary artistic merit in the doodle imprints and shared an intuitive thought with the TECC director: What if the doodle stick was replaced with an art brush, the elephant guided to an easel where he could extend his trunk comfortably, shown to dab the brush in any can of paint placed by the easel and, then wait to watch what happens?

Well, not all but a few elephants did find this variation in their routine an amusing pastime! The first to dip the art brush in paint cans and doodle over the art paper attached to the easel was Jojo. He was born at the TECC itself in 1992, but being naughty by temperament “his inspiration could desert him in the middle of a doodle and so, would turn around and walk off”! Kaew was another TECC born, seven years younger to Jojo, but possessed remarkable flair “to paint in sweeping arcs, almost closing the loops and he has perfect spatial awareness”.

TAO was rescued from the streets of Bangkok and often relapsed into his past trauma. But once in a while, he too did create masterly doodles at the easel. Wanalee, also born at the TECC in 1997, was of such charming disposition that she was adopted by Her Highness Princess Galayani, the elder sister of the King of Thailand, and with this royal patronage came to be referred as Princess Wanalee! She evolved a unique style “with a rich combination of vertical, horizontal and lateral strokes and then occasionally producing a more studied basket or nest-like image”.

TEAG director Kaewthanasawad states that “the whole process is awe inspiring.... this enormous animal using trunk-eye coordination to wield a tiny paintbrush.... within the confines of the paper and then the ability to emote, to demonstrate character, mood and of course artistic talent in producing an artistic creation that speaks to those who will listen and which at the very least, inspires and thrills any casual observer”. 

I pride myself as a reasonably informed environmentalist and wildlife enthusiast but I was literally dumb struck when I came to the  chapter, “A Nose For Art”, by Issaraporn Kaewthanasawad, in an anthology titled “Giant Hearts: Travels in the World of Elephants”, edited by Jean-Philippe Puyravaud and his wife Priya Davidar (both, professors of ecology at Pondicherry University). They had liked my article “Twinkle-eyed giants” published by The Hindu, which finds a place in the anthology and, in the event, provided me access to this unique art form.