Bears have long been admired for their beauty, with their thick fur, powerful build, and majestic presence. However, apparently they themselves may also have a sense of beauty.
There have been many sightings of bears in the wilderness, where they have been observed engaging in unusual behavior such as remaining motionless for extended periods in specific locations, seemingly doing nothing but gazing at picturesque landscapes like sunsets, lakes, and mountains. There is very little explanation as to why bears exhibit such behavior, apart from theorizing that they simply find such views to be aesthetically pleasing and “beautiful”.
In the 1990s, a Canadian couple went to live at Kambalnoye lake on the largely wild and uninhabited Kamchatka peninsula in Russia, to prove a point: that humans can peacefully coexist with bears, who are among the world’s most feared and misunderstood creatures. Artist Maureen Enns, and rancher Charles Russell, adopted three orphaned wild brown bear cubs, vowing they would not treat them as pets but would teach them to survive in the wild.
In 1996, Maureen began to suspect that the bears dug many of their nests in locations where they could enjoy scenic views, indicating a possible aesthetic sensibility. During the following season, the cubs often led her to nesting sites, and she became convinced that her theory was true.
Bear admiring the vista at Kurilskoye Lake, 1994. “Nobody posed this shot. No Hollywood director with an animal trainer and his bear. Just a real bear doing what comes naturally,” Enns wrote. “This picture triggered years of observation that led to a series of paintings.” Image credit: Maureen Enns and Charles Russell.
“Within a week of our arrival at Kambalnoe with the cubs, I discovered them curled up in an old bear’s nest and observed them sitting up and peacefully looking out across the lake. The cubs and I discovered many more hollows in the ground, with ever increasingly spectacular vistas,” she wrote.
Over the next four months, Maureen produced a series of paintings involving her sitting in bears’ nests, imagining herself as a bear and letting the energy of the surrounding area influence her style. From the bear’s eye level, she concluded that the animal interpreted the scene like an impressionist painter.
Could Maureen be right? Do bears really have a sense of beauty? Although we don’t have any scientific evidence per se, one thing that we can establish for sure is that bears are intelligent. Although their brains are challenging to comprehend due to their unfamiliar organization, their size and complexity indicate that bears have a capacity for intelligence that was previously unknown to us.
While not all bears exhibit identical behaviors, particularly concerning subjective matters such as beauty, it is intriguing that some of them indeed appear capable of seeking out and appreciating scenic vistas.
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