During the late 1950s biologists began to study the nature of art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 in humans. Of the theories proposed few had such a striking effect as those based on observations of primate

Primate

A primate is a mammal of the order Primates , which contains prosimians and simians. Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests; many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment...

 paintings, hundreds of which were cataloged by Desmond Morris

Desmond Morris

Desmond John Morris, born 24 January 1928 in Purton, north Wiltshire, is a British zoologist and ethologist, as well as a popular anthropologist. He is also known as a painter, television presenter and popular author.-Life:...

. Morris, along with his associate Tyler Harris, took these canvas paintings to indicate an intrinsic motivation for abstract creativity, expressed through an exploration of the visual field and color. Surprisingly, many of these painters progressed over time by expanding or contracting the area of paint coverage, the horizontal/vertical stroke relationships and even the development of content among those taught some English vocabulary.

Monkey paintings were exhibited in many modern art museums and experienced a fad following in the early 1960s. The cultural and scientific interest in monkey painting diminished steadily and little note is taken today.

See also

• Congo (chimpanzee)
  Congo (chimpanzee)
  Congo was a chimpanzee who learned how to draw and paint. Zoologist and surrealist painter Desmond Morris first observed his abilities when the chimp was offered a pencil and paper at two years of age. By the age of four, Congo had made 400 drawings and paintings. His style has been described as...
  
  
• Pierre Brassau
  Pierre Brassau
  Pierre Brassau refers to a 1964 hoax perpetrated by Åke "Dacke" Axelsson, a journalist at the Swedish tabloid Göteborgs-Tidningen. Axelsson came up with the idea of exhibiting a series of paintings made by a primate, under the presumption that they were the work of a previously unknown French...
  
  artist name for the Chimpanzee Peter from Borås’ zoo in Sweden.