Wow. March 30, 2008
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, Love and Death.Tags: elephant artist
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My friend Jennifer just pointed me toward this video, which was put up by Robin at Ponderings and Pawprints:
This is strangely hard for me to watch; I’m not entirely comfortable with the anthropomorphism in this piece, because I can’t really see it coming from the elephant’s point of view.
But it certainly corroborates my conception of Humans as not unique or special in the natural world. We’re just as beautiful as the next thing, and no more, and that’s pretty good.
The decisions which Humankind makes affect everything else on Earth. The fates of field mice and elephants are really out of their hands, aren’t they?
So it comes down to us, the People, to try to keep things sane and working. And not just working for us, working for All living things.
Namaste.
Little Bang Theory 
Isn’t that awesome?
Yup! đŸ™‚
The intelligence and skill of the elephant are amazing, yes…but watching the spectacle the animal was engaged in, I found to be disturbing and sad.
Me too, G. The whole thing bothered me to some extent, but as a validation of my conception of other species as our equals, I found the trade-off acceptable. It really seemed that the elephant was trying to communicate, rather than performing a “routine.”
Having seen other elephant “art”, which was totally abstract, this stands out because of the self-perception and self-awareness of the artist. The fine control over the brush is also amazing — as skilled as a human hand.