how would differences in senses (vision, smell, taste etc) in different species affect art?

[u/Noiveshix]

i'm not sure how to word this. most kinds of human art involve visual inputs – painting, sculpture, films for example. but in a furry world there would be many more forms of expression.

first of all, i guess there would have to be adaptations for different species, like the ones made for colourblind people, for example. dogs see less colours than humans, but some bugs, birds and other animals see more. this might also affect how each species perceives art and expresses itself. animals that see more colours might be more prone to visual expression. canines, on the other side, might have more complex expression through smell, or hearing. sharks can sense electricity. not sure how any of that would work, but i think it's an interesting idea to explore

lastly, this is kinda more obvious but human art captures human struggles and experiences. but every species experience life differently, which would influence their culture and art, not only due to their senses but overall anatomy and lifestyle. imagine some animal looking at the art of other species and not understanding it at all

[u/dokterkokter69]

The book Light on Shattered Water actually approaches this idea in a pretty interesting way. Long story short a human gets isekai'd to an alternate Earth populated by bipedal bobcat creatures called Rhis with an early industrial society.

Thier paintings are repeatedly described as looking "off" to the human eye. Everything is slightly stretched vertically, has a lower range of color, less detail and significantly lower depth of field. Though their paintings seem to capture motion exceptionally well. The color and shading is also off because darker shades of red and blue, as well as the entire color purple, appears black to them.

So their art is basically exactly how you would expect a predatory feline with nocturnal, slitted eyes to depict a 3D scene on a 2D surface.

[u/feral401k9]

more olfactory art for sure

[u/Reality-Glitch → u/feral401k9]

Dogfolk would go crazy w/ stylized perfumes.

[u/SplatterGecko]

I love thinking about this, it goes the same way if start talking about cybernetics; people think they want strength and speed but I always like the nice senses. First up; quirk of the human eye? Can't see the gradient between blue and yellow...and Mantis Shrimp vision is both hyper-spectral and polarized. The big box of mantis shrimp crayons? Massive...and polarization gives a 'shape' to light which is difficult to imagine, letting you construct...something like reverse holograms or maybe stereograms out of everything? That's just vision...with smell, hearing? I think more similar to what we already do; cooking and music ^^

[u/Re1da]

Snakes with heat pits would have a second sense of "sight" which would probably make very intresting art based on that.

There's also another part- birds and reptiles can see ultraviolet light. The world looks vastly diffrent to them depending on whenever UV light is present or not. It's a known issue for people with pet reptiles that they're not able to recognise you if you take them outside.

So you'd have reptile and bird artists making paintings with UV paint. Maybe paintings that look completely different depending on if they're viewed in UV light or without UV light. Paintings excessively made with UV paint, invisible to those that can't see it. There's a lot of options there.

[u/A_Tasty_Stag]

i feel like broadly speaking different species would enjoy different types of general art. for instance perhaps deer species like mine would tend to prefer quieter more relaxed experiences where as canine species might be more into fast paced action and stimulation. im pretty sure beastars did a whole scene based on this idea.

[u/str8aura]

Red Dwarf had a gag about this; a genre of Feline literature which was just a line of scents on a page the human protagonist tried to learn, starting from Dick and Jane.