Can the nests of some birds be regarded as works of art, as aesthetic creations worthy of our admiration? Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man that some birds have “fine powers of discrimination” and in some instances could be shown to “have a taste for the beautiful”.
But how can we regard nests as “art” when art is something we traditionally associate with museums, galleries, cleanness, quiet and, most importantly, humankind?
Since the early 20th century, attitudes towards what constitutes art have changed radically. A major breakthrough took place when Picasso described Indigenous artefacts as art, contrary to the anthropological, rather than artistic, interest that was common at the time. In 1907, Picasso saw African tribal masks in the Ethnographic Museum at the Trocadéro Palace in Paris. He commented:
The masks weren’t just like any other pieces of sculpture. Not at all. They were magic things.
The masks triggered a catharsis when Picasso quoted their formal and symbolic qualities in his 1907 work Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that was the precedent to Cubism.
Cubism shattered the three-dimensional pictorial illusionism that had shaped Western painting since Giotto. Modern art was a wrecker – of boundaries, norms and forms. As art critic Clement Greenberg noted, modernism
… manhandled into art what seemed until then too intractable, too raw and accidental, to be brought within the scope of aesthetic purpose.
Given such shifts in attitudes towards art and artmaking, where does it leave my claim that birds can, in some cases, be considered “artists”?
In terms of technique and virtuosity, birds are second to none. They’ve had millions of years to perfect their talents, much longer than homo sapiens. Michelangelo may have painted the Sistine Ceiling but he didn’t do it with a brush in his mouth and no other form of assistance.
Birds are inventive, a need driven by evolution’s struggle for survival. Art is sometimes regarded as a leisure activity: if people have the time (and sufficient food and shelter), they can develop the ability to create pleasing and well-made objects.
But what if the urge to make things carries with it an inherent desire, in the case of humans and perhaps of some highly intelligent birds, to make those things beautiful? Beauty needs planning and a discerning audience that can appreciate it.
For the lesser masked weavers of Africa, evolution has provided a critical mass. Though the weavers nest in colonies, they build self-contained units. The males weave elaborate nests, that resemble pendulous, open-weave baskets, hanging one by one from slender branches.
As the males work, the females judiciously assess their progress. A great deal of skill and industry goes into each nest: the weave must be of the right tightness and elasticity otherwise the eggs will slide out.
When the nest is finished and ready for judging, the male perches hopefully beside it. A messy, disorganised nest, and its designer, will be rejected. The better examples are given a stern and thorough examination, including an interior inspection. If the female approves, she immediately moves in. Thus she ensures that the standards of nest building among lesser masked weavers will remain very high.
In these competitive stakes, the authority of the female’s demanding taste is paramount. Though the females are simply doing the best for their species, you can’t help but feel sympathetic towards the males whose splendid and time-consuming efforts are often met with rejection, especially as rejection in the animal kingdom may mean death.
Perhaps in the future, the ingenious and beautiful constructions made by some birds will take their place in galleries as art.
Janine Burke’s latest book, Nest: The Art of Birds, was published earlier this year.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
”Perhaps in the future, the ingenious and beautiful constructions made by some birds will take their place in galleries as art.”
If the nests had been naturally disbanded I can’t see why not, and it may help the public appreciate the beauty in nature.
I had the great pleasure recently of watching a wedge-tailed eagle fly for some hours without once flapping its wings, which was a majestic display of natural flight, something mankind could never do.
Suzy Gneist
logged in via Facebook
On that last point I disagree, since I and many others have flown our hang gliders or paragliders with eagles many times without flapping a wing ;) Nevertheless, during the breeding season it is best to avoid their nesting sites so as to not receive a talon mark in your leading edge :)
Ian Donald Lowe
Seeker of Truth
Is that flying, or controlled falling?
Suzy Gneist
logged in via Facebook
Since birds and free-flying (HG & PG) use the same principles of lift to stay aloft when not 'flapping' (e.g. thermal and ridge lift) and both can stay in the air for hours, maintaining or gaining height by above means before running out of or leaving lift to eventually land, then you must consider all forms of flight without thrust (engines or flapping wings) as "controlled falling" - birds live under the same principles of physics and gravity as free-flying humans :)
Suzy Gneist
logged in via Facebook
BTW, I am editor/designer of the Hang Gliding Federation of Australia's (HGFA) national publication http://www.hgfa.asn.au/skysailor/skysailor.htm
Ian Donald Lowe
Seeker of Truth
Art. Noun:1.The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,...: "the art of the Renaissance"
2.Works produced by such skill and imagination.
Art, artifice, artificial.
With respect, the beauty of the natural world is natural and free. Taking items from nature takes those items from their correct context, so much of the experience would be lost in translation in a gallery setting. Also, taking something like a bird…
Read moreDale Bloom
Analyst
Many artists are imitating nature. Artists such as Turner and Monet were creating impressions or representations of the natural world.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/waterlilies/
I know people who rarely step off concrete, and would rarely see the natural word. To engage such people in natural wild-life preservation is a big task, because they rarely see or experience the natural world.
Perhaps bird nests could be displayed in art museums, if licensed to do so by a Government agency.
James Walker
logged in via Facebook
So a nest made by a bird is natural, while a basket made by humans from the same materials is artificial?
Hardly.
Either we are part of the natural world, or the birds are making artificial things. You can't have it both ways.
Also, the motivations are often the same - consider how many young men become musicians to impress the girls!
Dale Bloom
Analyst
“Also, the motivations are often the same - consider how many young men become musicians to impress the girls!”
And if girls are not impressed by boys, then they do not mate and continue the species.
There is a question as to whether or not a girl bird is impressed by a nest that conforms entirely to a standard, or do they become more impressed if a nest built by a boy bird is somehow unique.
I guess we will never know.
Ian Donald Lowe
Seeker of Truth
ar·ti·fi·cial adj.
a. Made by humans; produced rather than natural.
b. Brought about or caused by sociopolitical or other human-generated forces or influences: set up artificial barriers against women and minorities; an artificial economic boom.
2. Made in imitation of something natural; simulated.
3. Not genuine or natural.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin artificilis, belonging to art, from artificium, craftsmanship; see artifice.]
Yes James, that's exactly what I am saying and the dictionaries tend to support my position as well. I'm not being derogatory of human art at all but there are clear and distinct differences that can be applied here.
Roy Niles
logged in via Facebook
Beauty requires finesse and finesse requires intelligence. And birds are particularly attracted to mates that demonstrate the subtleties required for their species' brand of intelligence.
Lisa Ann Kelly
retired
This is where homo sapiens learned the art of basket-weaving. Let's put the baskets on display, and leave the nests out in nature.
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
I don't know much about art, as they say but I like birds. And I watch them a lot. Mostly about a dozen different species of parrots where I now live.
And I've watched them enough to suspect that we really have a very limited notion of intelligence and how to appreciate it. I have seen interspecies play - a cockatoo and a wattle bird just having fun for no obviois "functional" purpose, watched them solve simple problems and watched them just fooling about, which the parrots do a lot.
Now…
Read moreRobert Nelson
Associate Director Student Experience at Monash University
A very chirpy article, Janine, which I'm sure to tweet about. The text makes me want to get your book. As a first response, however, I'm intrigued that the comparison is with art rather than architecture, since a nest is a functional house.
It's wonderful how we resist analogies to nature in cultural studies in order to avoid the abuse of essentialism, only to return to the call of the wild when culture seems so precariously and anthropocentric uppity.
Some of the commentary will lean too…
Read morePeter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
More like art than one might initially suspect Rob. They pinch each others ideas and designs incessantly.
I have four bowers within a five minute walk of the back door and as the season progresses and the quantity of blue and white material becomes restricted, they pillage and plunder adjoining bowers constantly.
Looks like art to me.
Roy Niles
logged in via Facebook
Why would it be art "rather" than architecture? And we don't know if these artifacts are sturdier than they are beautiful or vice versa, but I'd bet on the latter if attraction of a female is the purpose. Perceptions make the initial differences in nature.
John Newton
Author Journalist
Here here. Art is useless. Discuss
Angus Martin
Retired zoologist
I have no problem with regarding birds’ nests as examples of art; it simply comes down to a question of how you define art. Without wishing to be a spoilsport, however, I need to point out that there’s a fair amount of wishful and/or woolly thinking going on here. We do not know, and we never shall know, whether birds have an appreciation of beauty, but we are confident that we can analyse and understand birds’ nature and behaviour without ever calling upon such concepts as art and beauty. To compare…
Read morePeter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
Ah Mr Angus such a cold scientific eye. Must everything be so solidly anchored in facts. Remember Einstein's dictum about knowledge and the greater value of imagination.
Of course a flock of cockies will have some trouble with the detail of Michaelangelo restoration - I make this point myself actually. Although I suspect they'd probably give that sad Spanish senora a run for her money. And you would have a Jackson Pollock floor.
Nor would I be saying that - at the core of it - there's not…
Read moreRoy Niles
logged in via Facebook
"We do not know, and we never shall know, whether birds have an appreciation of beauty, but we are confident that we can analyse and understand birds’ nature and behaviour without ever calling upon such concepts as art and beauty."
"Wishful and/or woolly thinking going on here" indeed.
Birds did not become beautiful by stochastic accident, even thought they still teach that in our American colleges. Admittedly they aren't that good at portrait painting and the like, but then I'll be damned if i could build a birds nest to their satisfaction.
Dianna Arthur
Dianna Arthur is a Friend of The Conversation.
Environmentalist
Just because we can't discuss the merits of placement of of blue objects over a latte with Mr Bower, doesn't mean it isn't art.
Humans really need to be taken down a peg or three.