But we don't because we know that even very small humans have a developing consciousness and are generally intelligent in an uninformed way.

Paintings and drawings by very young children look a lot like the elephant paintings, which is why they (the elephant paintings) interest me. If one observes children as they draw or paint, one will notice that representation is not their first objective. Rather, mechanical process occupies their attention. They explore the texture of the paper, the behavior of the paint, the effect of the brush, different methods of holding the tools or applying the pigment, the different colors' blended characteristics, and, when they think the adults aren't watching, how the paint feels on their own skin, how it smells, how it tastes. Everything they do when they encounter something new tests the new thing for its physical properties. Their behavior at first is not artistic, but scientific.

Only after issues of mechanical process are resolved by experimentation do young children move on to make the paint do something else. Typically, they move on to primative circles and other curves, which require more muscle control and refined manipulation of their tool. So we have moved on from science to technological applications.

Only after they have explored the new pieces of the world and mastered its tools to their satisfaction will children begin to produce things that resemble objects in the world around them, true art in its embryonic form. Typically -- and this is crucial -- adults who have supplied the art materials will observe the children's actions and define some of their patterns representationally for them, praise their work, and paint along with them in a shared playtime that feeds a child's imagination and understanding.

Abstraction only comes later. One must identify the elements of reality before one can consciously abstract them in art. Adult artists produce abstractions; children produce primatives. People looking at examples of both can find the abstractions ugly or confusing, and the primatives charming, or sometimes see no difference between the two ("My kid could paint that."). The differences turn up at the cognitive and emotional levels.

Elephant painting may very well reflect a rudimentary intelligence-driven curiosity about the mechanics of art materials. That the elephants receive positive reinforcement when they paint, I do not doubt. Certainly, enough consistent patterns exist to support deliberate painting by the elephants. But the next step, representational art, requires imagination and shared play or other feedback with a "teacher". If the advocates of elephant art can show me the sun and a tree painted by an elephant, or even, as Robert suggests, something like the easel, I'd be more inclined to consider whether anything "abstract" in the true sense of the word is going on in the elephant house. Otherwise, they are not the products of elephant imagination, but pretty novelties that inspire human imagination about elephants.