Smarter than you think

the sad thing is the chain on its neck

Elephants are actually trained to do this through guidance from their trainer. They stand to one side of the elephant and they do different signals on the elephant's ear to tell them what to do. So, unfortunately the elephants don't ever paint whatever they feel like painting... But it's still amazing that they know what trainer wants and they can paint it with such precision with their trunk.

I would say it's similar to horseback riding. The trainer is kinda like the horseback rider. Even though the horse is trained and the rider is telling it what to do, I still think it's absolutely amazing to see it do things like this:

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clearly photoshopped on Lol

The elephants are trained to paint these. They can churn out hundreds, and the amazed tourists buy them. The elephant has no idea what he is actually drawing, he is just repeating what the trainer forced on him. And that trunk position is extremely uncomfortable for the elephants, yet they are hardly given any breaks, because the tourists pay so well for those "amazing" paintings the oh-so-cute-and-smart elephants have created.

Go ahead and keep thumbing it up.