An Elephant Painting a Picture of an Elephant

This shows an elephant is painting a picture of an elephant! It's a little unbelievable..., but it is true!!

The above-linked video is "true" in the sense that it represents the real phenomenon of elephants who have learned to paint — with the caveats that "painting" in this sense means the animals outline and color specific drawings they've been taught to replicate (rather than abstractly making free - form portraits of whatever tickles their pachydermic fancies at the moment), they work under the direction of trainers, they don't all exhibit the same level of proficiency, and the quality of their output can be highly variable.

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, an eight-year-old female living at the Maetaman Elephant Camp in Thailand.)

Another photo gallery that captures painting pachyderms in action in Thailand can be viewed here.

Relevant topic (Please click on title):

Elephants on parade in northern Thailand

(Thanks to Ms P. Kandaphati for the link)

Elephant 'self-portrait' on show

BBC News "Elephant 'Self-Portrait' on Show." 21 July 2006.

Relationship breeds corruption

For two consecutive years, Thailand has earned a dubious distinction from two international organisations in charge of monitoring corruption in Asia and around the world.

In a poll released last Tuesday by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (Perc), the Philippines was named as the most corrupt Asian economy, followed by Thailand. The Philippines scored 9.0 out of a possible 10 points under a grading system used by Perc in which zero is the best score and 10 the worst. Thailand obtained a score of 8.0 after the military, which staged a coup in 2006, was seen to have failed to tackle the problem.

"The kingdom's economy has been marking time for two years while it sorts out political problems in which allegations of corruption figure prominently," said Perc.

The organisation polled 1,400 expatriates in January and February in 13 countries in Asia. Excluded were some notorious for corruption, such as Burma and Bangladesh. Singapore and Hong Kong retained their rankings as the cleanest economies, with scores of 1.13 and 1.80, respectively, followed by Japan (2.25), Macau (3.30), South Korea (5.65), Malaysia (6.37), Taiwan (6.55), India (7.25), Vietnam (7.75), China (7.98) and Indonesia (7.98).

Last year, global watchdog Transparency International said corruption in Thailand had worsened; the country slipped back from 11th place to 14th in the Asia-Pacific index and from 63rd to 84th in the overall 180-nation world index.

New Zealand was the "cleanest" of the 32 countries on the list for Asia and the Pacific, where most of the countries faced serious perceived levels of domestic corruption.

"The levels of corruption in these countries highlight the need for governments to engage more actively with civil society in fighting corruption," Transparency said.

Perc is more forthright in its analysis, particularly on Thailand, where "the close personal connections between politicians, civil servants, and businessmen are the backbone of networks of corruption that reach from the central government down to local governments."

This is exactly what Thai academics and non-governmental organisations have been telling us for years, and it explains why the problem is so difficult to solve.

According to the Asian Development Bank 2001, 79% of all businesses had to bribe Thai officials in order to obtain the desired service or to obtain a contract, and bribery costs were estimated to add 20% to the overall costs of a contract. An estimate made by the National Counter Corruption Commission calculates that up to 30% of government procurement budgets vanishes because of corrupt practices.

The National Institute of Development Administration reported that 95 mega-projects cost the state 400 billion baht solely due to corruption within the last five-and-a-half years. Bribery is particularly concentrated in a few governmental sectors in charge of large money transactions: the Land, Revenue, Customs and Transport departments and the National Police Office. Business people buy opportunities and favours, and officials sell opportunities and favours.

Meanwhile, the board memberships of Thai corporations are still characterised by an emphasis on personal connections over professional competence. High-ranking bureaucrats are commonly found on the boards of Thai companies.

Transparency is right in calling on civil society to fight actively against corruption in Thailand. But the rural masses must also be empowered to resist cash handouts while tough new anti-corruption measures must be enforced to break the interconnectedness between the business sector and the political system.