Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/03/31/quiz-was-this-painting-made-b.html
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The painting on the left is “Parabel” (1958) by Ernst Nay. The painting on the right is by an ape in the Congo.
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Technically, both are by a species of ape.
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Humans are apes 
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I got 100%
Apes have no sense of composition.
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My year as an art student paid off. 100% on an internet quiz.
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And all are from the Congo.
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Here’s one by my daughter when she was 3. I scanned it and have a large print framed on the wall. I call it my de Kooning.
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Too organized. Not manic enough.
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Dang, misidentified the first one. The way the blue, black, and white seem to radiate from the center suggested an aesthetic decision, and the brush strokes seem more uniform than the other two ape paintings.
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Did they get the ape’s permission to reproduce its work?
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No, the ape was work for hire.
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They lost that court battle sadly.
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Also I believe the common expression is “so easy a monkey could do it” so I’m going to need some examples from monkeys before I decide to take up art.
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Maybe that was an aesthetic decision.
I only got a 67%.
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Ha ha! I get it! Modern art is bad!
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I like me some arts.
Saw lots of these stories before, usually reprinted from American newspapers in the sixties, on slow news days when it wasn’t hot enough to send a reporter out to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Generally they centred around local juried arts shows, and someone had to try and troll abstract expressionism, the big ism of the day.
My favourite jurist remark: “That’s the best painting from a monkey I’ve ever seen.”
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Don’t call them Monkeys
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I got 83%. I was just guessing. Abstract expressionism doesn’t interest me.
The blue one looked like a flower arrangement. Maybe the ape liked flowers.
Also, when did humans stop being hominids (great apes)? Why am I always the last to know these things?!
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