Elephant Painting

Claim:   Video clip shows an elephant painting a picture of an elephant. 

This shows an elephant painting an elephant. It's a little unbelievable. Is it true? 

Origins:   The above-linked video is "true" in the basic sense that it captures the real phenomenon of elephants who perform the physical process of creating drawings by holding brushes in their trunks and applying them to cards mounted on easels. A BBC News article described an exhibition of such paintings at an Edinburgh gallery in 1996: 

Pictures which were painted by elephants have gone on display at an Edinburgh gallery.

Art graduate Victoria Khunapramot, 26, has brought the paintings from Thailand to the Dundas Gallery on Dundas Street.

They include "self-portraits" by Paya, who is said to be the only elephant to have mastered his own likeness.

Paya is one of six elephants whose keepers have taught them how to hold a paintbrush in their trunks. They drop the brush when they want a new colour.

Mrs Khunapramot, from Newington, said: "Many people cannot believe that an elephant is capable of producing any kind of artwork, never mind a self-portrait.

"But they are very intelligent animals and create the entire paintings with great gusto and concentration within just five or 10 minutes — the only thing they cannot do on their own is pick up a paintbrush, so it gets handed to them.

"They are trained by artists who fine-tune their skills, and they paint in front of an audience in their conservation village, leaving no one in any doubt that they are authentic elephant creations."

Mrs Khunapramot, who set up the Thai Fine Art company after studying the history of art in St Andrews and business management at Edinburgh's Napier University, said it took about a month to train the animals to paint.

The web site of the Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project explains the background behind elephants' being taught to paint, with the resulting artworks being sold and the monies so raised being used to fund elephant conservation projects. The site includes a video gallery that features several clips of 
pachyderm artists in action similar to the one linked above, as well as galleries displaying the individual elephants' works. (Based on the similarity of drawings, we'd guess that the elephant shown in the example video is Hong, a nine-year-old female living at the Maetaman Elephant Camp in Thailand.) 

However, although these animals may be creating artworks in a purely physical sense, critics contend that the elephants participating in this activity are not actually "painting" in any meaningful sense of the word: They aren't engaging in any form of creativity, much less abstractly making free-form portraits of whatever tickles their pachydermic fancies at the moment; rather, they're simply actors performing in tourist trap attractions in Thailand, where they do nothing more than outline and color specific drawings they've been painstakingly trained to replicate — and they manage that much only while receiving a good deal of prompting and guidance throughout the process from their mahout (trainers). 

As zoologist Desmond Morris wrote after he and scientist Richard Dawkins traveled to Thailand in 2008 to investigate the "elephant painting" phenomenon: 

So are these endearing mammals truly artistic? The answer, as politicians are fond of saying, is yes and no.

Let me describe exactly what happens. A painting session begins with three heavy easels being wheeled into position. On each easel a large piece of white card (30in x 20in) has been fixed underneath a strong wooden frame.

Each elephant is positioned in front of her easel and is given a brush loaded with paint by her mahout. He pushes the brush gently into the end of her trunk.

The man then stands to one side of his animal's neck and watches intently as the brush starts to make lines on the card. Then the empty brush is replaced by another loaded one, and the painting continues until the picture is complete.

The elephant then turns towards its audience, bows deeply and is rewarded with bananas.

The paintings are then removed from their frames and offered for sale. They are quickly snapped up by people who have been astonished by what they have just witnessed.

To most of the members of the audience, what they have seen appears to be almost miraculous. Elephants must surely be almost human in intelligence if they can paint pictures of flowers and trees in this way. What the audience overlooks are the actions of the mahouts as their animals are at work.

This oversight is understandable because it is difficult to drag your eyes away from the brushes that are making the lines and spots. However, if you do so, you will notice that, with each mark, the mahout tugs at his elephant's ear.

He nudges it up and down to get the animal to make a vertical line, or pulls it sideways to get a horizontal one. To encourage spots and blobs he tugs the ear forward, towards the canvas. So, very sadly, the design the elephant is making is not hers but his. There is no elephantine invention, no creativity, just slavish copying.

Investigating further, after the show is over, it emerges that each of the so-called artistic animals always produces exactly the same image, time after time, day after day, and week after week. Mook always paints a bunch of flowers, Christmas always does a tree, and Pimtong a climbing plant. Each elephant works to a set routine, guided by her master.

The following video clip reveals something of how much an elephant is actually guided by its mahout during the painting process: 

By: pipspiper On 1:04 PM

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Royal dog fled from Siberia into British exile, living in shadow of Windsor Castle

Joy, Crown Prince Alexei's spaniel has not only cheated death but, though scarred by the shootings, escaped Yeketerinburg across Siberia and eventually to England. Picture: Zlatoust City Museum

Under house arrest in Siberia, the abdicated last tsar Nikolai II, his empress Alexandra, and their five children had all clung to the hope that they could find a safe home in England. Their execution in Yekaterinburg at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries on the fateful night of 16 and 17 July 1918 ended all such dreams, as well as any lingering ambitions that the Russian monarchy could be restored.

The story of the fate of the royal family is well known; likewise the bogus claims that two of the royal children, Anastasia and Alexei, somehow escaped the hailing bullets and fled the scene in the Ipatiev House. Two dogs belonging to the princesses were also shot dead in the mayhem that sealed the fate of a dynasty that had ruled Russia for more than three centuries. 

Less well known is the remarkable survival of Crown Prince Alexei's dog, who not only cheated death but, though scarred by the shootings, made his epic escape from Yeketerinburg across Siberia and eventually to England where he lived in the shadow of Windsor Castle, the favourite home of the British royals who deposed Tsar Nikolai had hoped would give his family a safe haven. 

Crown Prince Alexei with Joy. Pictures: Zlatoust City Museum

This dog - Joy - was familiar to the Russian people in the final years of the country's monarchy. The spaniel appeared on photographs of the royal family and was a much-loved companion of the heir to the throne who suffered from haemophilia, which meant he was often prevented from playing with other children amid fears he would suffer injury.The faithful Joy would even accompany the Tsar and his son to the front during the First World War as Alexei recounted in his diary:

August 19, 1916 in Mogilev: 'This morning had 2 lessons. Wrote mama before breakfast and walked. Was eating breakfast with everyone in the tent. Afternoon was a walk along the Dnepr river. Joy is in hospital. Has worms'.  

November 5: 'Since yesterday, there is no pain. Remained still in bed. Before breakfast wrote mama. Spent the day the way I did yesterday: played the sea game and cards, listened to the French and English reading. Joy is constantly with me'.

November 9 : 'Finally, I was allowed to leave the bed. Woke up early and drunk coffee at a common table. Wrote a letter to mama. Rode to the station and back, taking Joy with me...'. 

The following year the Tsar abdicated, and Joy followed the gypsy royals on their odyssey of exile eastwards from the royal capital of St Petersburg, then Petrograd. In November 1917 in Tobolsk, in the west of Siberia, Grand Duchess Olga recorded in a letter to her teacher that Joy and two other dogs were with the royal exiles. 

'We have to drive the first two from the yard, where they enjoy the damp and eat all the garbage ... ', she wrote, referring to Joy. From the historic town of Tobolsk, Russia's first settlement in Siberia, the dogs accompanied the royal family on its last journey to Yekaterinburg. 

In Omsk, a former lady-in-waiting to Empress Alexandra came to examine the animal. 'I went to see Joy, and he, evidently connecting me in his dog's brain with his masters, imagined that my coming announced theirs. Never did I see an animal in such ecstasy'. Picture: Zlatoust City Museum

One of the marksmen who shot the royal family, wrote: 'Mikhail Medvedev shot Nicholas II dead with the first bullet;...I also shot into the prisoners'. 

He recounted 'the dogs barking very loud' and that after the frantic shooting only Alexei - despite his reputation for being a sickly child - remained alive, albeit wounded. 'I recommended to kill him with a knife and slay the royal dogs that were barking so much', he said, and there is evidence that the other dogs were indeed expunged. In the event, Alexei - the boy born to rule all Russia - died aged just 13. 

One of the guards in the Ipatiev House described the scene after the execution. 

'The door from the hallway to the room where the royal family lived  was closed, but the room was empty. Not a single sound was heard from there. Previously, when the royal family lived there, one could hear  the life in their rooms: voices, footsteps. Now there was no life. Only the dog stood in the hallway near the door into the room where the royal family lived and waited to be let in these rooms. I remember thinking at the time: you're waiting in vain'.

It is believed that Joy - having witnessed the family as they were mercilessly gunned to death - escaped from the scene when the bodies were carted outside to be covered in acid, then burned and buried in woodland near the city. 

One of the guards then took pity and cared for the spaniel. Eight days after the execution, the Soviet soldiers had to withdraw as White forces entered the city. They soon found the animal  - 'half-starved' - running around the yard. He was seen as 'the sole survivor of the Imperial Family'.

The royal dog was in the home of an Ipatiev House guard, Mikhail Letemin.

Colonel Pavel (Paul) Rodzianko - then serving with the British Expeditionary Force in Siberia -  assumed care of Joy who by that time was  blind. 

'After Joy was rescued, Paul looked after him. The spaniel came, wagging his tail uncertainly, stumbling a little, finally bumping his nose into Rodzianko's leg. 

'He was totally blind. He seemed to be always looking for his master, and this had made him so sad and dejected that he would scarcely touch his food even after he was lovingly cared for,' wrote Marion Wynn in 'The Final Resting Place of Joy', an article in Royalty Digest (2004).

The colonel travelled with Joy eastward and into Siberia, to Omsk, where a British military mission was stationed. 

'Every time I pass my garden at Windsor I think of the dog's tomb with the ironical inscription 'Here lies Joy'. Picture: Zlatoust City Museum

How do we know this was really Joy, the Crown Prince's dog? In Omsk, a former lady-in-waiting to Empress Alexandra came to examine the animal.

'I went to see Joy, and he, evidently connecting me in his dog's brain with his masters, imagined that my coming announced theirs,' wrote Sophie Buxhoeveden in her book 'Left Behind: Fourteen Months in Siberia December 1917-February 1919'.

'Never did I see an animal in such ecstasy. When I called him he made one bound out of the carriage and tore down the platform towards me, leaping in the air and running to me with his forepaws, walking upright like a circus dog. 

'General Dietrichs said that he had never given such a welcome to anyone before, and I attributed this solely to the fact that my clothes, which were the same that I had worn at Tobolsk, had still kept familiar smell, for I had never specially petted him. When I left, Joy lay for a whole day near the door through which I had gone. He refused his food and relapsed again into his usual despondency.'

She, and other royal retinue had earlier tried to intervene with the Soviet authorities to permit to royals to flee to the West - to no avail.

She asked in her 1929 book: 'What had little Joy seen on that terrible night of July 16? He had been with the Imperial Family to the last. Had he witnessed the tragedy? His brain had evidently kept the memory of a great shock, and his heart was broken. It was pathetic seeing this dumb friend, who brought back the memory of the Tsarvich so vividly. Little Joy was well cared for. 

'He was taken to England by Colonel Rodzianko and spent the last years in the utmost canine comfort, but still never recovered his spirits.'

Crown Prince Alexei with Joy. Picture: Zlatoust City Museum

As the White forces collapsed, and the Reds surged their way across Siberia, the British were ordered home - via the Russian Far East. 'With heavy hearts we sailed away from Vladivostok. Joy, the little ill-named spaniel who had seen his master murdered, that fateful night, travelled with me. I have never seen Russia again,' wrote Rodzianko in his book Tattered Banners in 1939. 

Joy was described as 'happy enough in his new home' at Sefton Lawn in Windsor.

Had history turned out differently, his Russian royal family might have been entertained in the nearby castle by their cousins, the British monarchs. Yet Joy was the only one to make it. And the truth is that King George V was not keen to allow them to Britain; fearing they would provoke revolutionary sentiment in a country ravaged by World War One. 

'Staring into his limpid brown eyes, Paul often wondered how much the dog could remember,' wrote Wynn. 'He had been through such a traumatic time in Yekaterinburg, he was such a gentle and faithful friend to his young master. How could he forget such horrors? Joy died at Sefton Lawn and was buried in the garden.' 

Rodzianko himself added: 'Every time I pass my garden at Windsor I think of the small dog's tomb in the bushes with the ironical inscription 'Here lies Joy'. To me that little stone marks the end of an empire and a way of life'.

The garden and Joy's modest grave is now believed to have been concreted over as a car park. Yet this spaniel's story deserves to live on as testimony to the loyalty of a remarkable dog who sensed a great wrong had been done to his masters. 

* The Pulp Xpress would like to thank and salute blogger Maja Proescholdt for her research in bringing the story of Joy to a new generation. You can read her superb account here. 

By: pipspiper On 9:29 PM

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LOL! Funny video! Obama tendang pintu sebab marah dengan orang media!

By: pipspiper On 12:32 AM

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Girl fights back snatch thief with a bit of Muay Thai! Is it fake?

Video menunjukkan seorang gadis hampir menumpaskan seorang peragut jikalau tidak dibantu oleh rakan nya yang menunggu. Gadis itu hampir diparang tapi nasib baik peragut itu seperti teragak-agak.

By: pipspiper On 7:12 PM

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Pembunuh Norazita berjaya ditangkap polis!

Tahniah PDRM!

KUALA LUMPUR Nov 10, 2013: Pengawal keselamatan yang menembak mati pegawai Ambank Norazita Abu Talib, 37, dalam kejadian rompakan di Ambank cawangan Subang Jaya pada 23 Okt lepas, telah berjaya ditangkap polis pagi ini.

Perkara ini disahkan oleh Ketua Polis Negara Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar dalam laman Twitternya apabila beliau mengucapkan tahniah kepada pasukan Ops Cantas Bukit Aman yang dikatakan telah berjaya menangkap suspek di Johor Baharu.

Dalam kejadian pada pukul 6.18 petang itu, Norazita, maut ditembak oleh suspek ketika beliau membuka peti besi di dalam bilik kebal bank berkenaan, bersama-sama seorang lagi pegawai wanita.

Mangsa yang sudah berkerja selama 16 tahun di bank itu meninggal dunia di tempat kejadian susulan kecederaan parah pada bahagian kepala akibat ditembak dengan 'pump gun' oleh suspek.

Suspek kemudian melarikan sejumlah RM450,000 dari bilik kebal itu.

Rakaman video selama 32 saat, yang dipercayai sedutan CCTV memaparkan insiden itu, telah tersebar dengan meluas di laman sosial ekoran kejadian tersebut..

By: pipspiper On 10:23 AM

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Drebar bas menjadi penyelamat wanita yang ingin bunuh diri.

Darnell Barton telah menjadi seorang penyelamat kepada seorang wanita apabila ternampak wanita itu berpaut kepada rel di atas jambatan dalam apa yang dianggap sebagai cubaan bunuh diri.

Dia telah menghentikan bas yang penuh dengan pelajar di atas sebuah jambatan dan menanyakan semaada wanita itu okey. Apabila wanita itu tidak menjawab, drebar itu menghampiri wanita yang kelihatan sangat murung itu.

Barton terus memegang tangan wanita itu dan menanyakan semaada beliau mahu kembali dalam selamat. Apabila wanita itu mengatakan 'ya', beliau terus mengangkat wanita itu ke tepi jalan dan cuba menenangkan nya.

Insiden dramatik itu telah dirakam dari CCTV bas dan semenjak video itu timbul, Barton telah diangkat sebagai hero di Amerika kerana tindakanya.

Tidak lama selepas itu polis telah sampai di tempat kejadian dan apabila Barton naik semula bas, beliau telah disambut seperti wira oleh pelajar-pelajar di dalam bas tersebut.

Barton berkata, "Saya terpaksa lakukan apa yang saya rasa perlu pada masa itu."

By: pipspiper On 7:48 AM

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Mr Bie ft Adik C "Naik Minyak" | Kuch-Kuch Hota Hai

By: pipspiper On 6:03 PM

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Gol paling berhantu dalam sejarah....

Bersetuju atau tidak jika ini dikatakan ini gol berhantu? Pelik tapi benar!

By: pipspiper On 11:08 PM

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