The Aesthetic of Nature

The aim of this paper is to review the development of human art in an attempt to establish a biological principle of aesthetics. When talking about art in an ethological context, we must understand the creative act itself, but the behavioral phenomenon that characterizes all species and not just a small minority of persons who commonly refer to artists. The ethological comparison allows to identify all those aspects that can allow you to make a comparison with the human being. The possibility of finding analogies rather than homologies with other animals is one of many possibilities for understanding the phylogenetic and ontogenetic path of modern man. One of the most admired characteristics of bird behavior is song but there are many examples of discrimination of aesthetic stimuli by animals. A wide range of animals, from fish to primates, successfully learns discrimination of music, while preference for particular music is rather rare in animals, although songbirds prefer some musical stimuli to others. Some animals, such as chimpanzees and elephants, draw and paint, however the animals do not “enjoy” their products and the products do not have a reinforcing property to other conspecifics. This constitutes the clear difference between human art and the art-like behavior of animals.