Darwinian aesthetics can restore the vital place of beauty, skill, and pleasure as high artistic values. Dr Dutton's, mine, Adolf Hitler's? Might have been better-titled The Art Critics Instinct as, so far, it has dealt exclusively not with the creative impulse but with aesthetic judgement.
View 1 comment. Apr 03, Gretchen Rubin added it. A fascinating, thought-provoking, controversial argument for why we love art.
The Arts have been with us a long time, starting, perhaps, with language and story telling, dance, musical sounds, cave paintings, etc. Ditto regarding speculation on them: as early, at least, as Pythagoras and music.
In general, each of these disciplines have developed and flourished more or less independently or so we have been lead to believe culminating in reaching alleged apexes within specific cultures and racial groupings determined more or less in the 19th-century.
But it was really The Arts have been with us a long time, starting, perhaps, with language and story telling, dance, musical sounds, cave paintings, etc. But it was really in the 20th-century, when the Arts were all included in academic institutions and subjected to more intense study and theorising, that a veritable flourishing of ideas on aesthetics for each discipline came to fruition. Much of this is highly conceptual, often using highly specific jargon, exploring the many nooks and cavities of each — so much so that often enough they can be almost impenetrable for anyone not within the discipline to grasp readily.
At the core of this is the implication that each of the disciplines associated with the Arts generally considers itself as separate and distinct from the others, requiring specialised training and expertise by its acolytes.
Anyone trying to come to terms with the Arts in general, therefore, will often find themselves inundated, as it were, by mountainous waves of specific theorising and speculation that can be disorienting, to say the least. In The Art Instinct Denis Dutton attempts to reorient much of this disorientation by suggesting that in fact, the Arts are not really distinct and separate disciplines, but rather manifestations of basic human evolutionary instincts that are part and parcel of who we are as human beings.
In so doing, Dutton does not wish to completely discredit the implicitly separate nature in theoretical considerations, as they often enough have useful things to say, but he does need to go through these ideas if only to give them some credit where it is due. The book is not long — merely some pages — so a lot of information is provided in very condensed form. This can provide its own difficulties for the ordinary reader, but it can be and is of real value to the persistent reader.
Many of the individual chapters are very insightful all on their own. Put all together, Dutton is arguing that one needs to consider all the Arts, not as separate, individualistic manifestations as they might appear to us specifically in the 21st-century but as in fact representing a more holistic aspect of humanity which is better appreciated by taking an evolutionary approach to them.
Homo sapiens remains a species with insatiable tastes for music, pictures, dance and storytelling. The unity of the arts emerges from the unity of mankind.
May 17, Kathryn rated it did not like it Shelves: nonfiction. I began this book with unbounded optimism, excited to hear a Darwinian take on the human drive for creativity. I was slightly less excited about Dutton's take on postmodern ethnography and his weird repetition of the physical characteristics of women as they apply I began this book with unbounded optimism, excited to hear a Darwinian take on the human drive for creativity.
I was slightly less excited about Dutton's take on postmodern ethnography and his weird repetition of the physical characteristics of women as they apply to the notion of evolutionary beauty.
As I approached the middle of the book, I couldn't help but notice that, while Dutton pays lip service to art from other cultures in his discussion of ethnography, his examples of great art and literature are overwhelmingly old, white, European, and above all linear, whether he's discussing music, visual arts, or literature. I love Middlemarch and Hard Times , but I wish Dutton could also cite great works of literature in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Finally, my enamor with the book completely dissipated as the discussion shifted from Darwin toward criticism -- with a decidedly anti-postmodern flavor. Throughout the book, for example, Dutton states that pleasure and representation are two of the chief aims of art. He goes so far as to say that these are two of twelve qualities that define art Dutton This seems a narrow classification, leaving out the sense of wonder we can get from tragedy, ugliness, the non-linear, and the abstract.
At the end of the book, Dutton also asserts that the greatest arts are created with "a belief that real beauty exists, there is objective truth, and the good is a genuine value independent of human cultures and choices" Objective truth?
Oh Dutton, that's so 19th Century! Maybe I'm a product of my own postmodern education, but in the end, despite my optimism for his subject, I just don't like Dutton's take on art. I can't help but wonder if he would like to rewind to the early s and freeze our views of art and beauty in a pre-Modern, perhaps Pleistocene era.
A masterpiece, and a mind-bending work. Denis Dutton faced criticism from the entire continent of art theorists to research and publish his work. As evolution theory continues to be doubted and critiqued by sceptics, trying to extend its rules and naturalism to the arts, is not only an act of bravery, but also of pure scientific curiosity.
Humanities have lacked for too long a scientific foundation, Dutton opened here a new avenue for critical thinking. As Steven Pinker states in the back cover A masterpiece, and a mind-bending work.
As Steven Pinker states in the back cover "This book marks out the future of the humanities View 2 comments. Aug 13, Flynn Evans rated it really liked it. A compelling case for the necessity of art and beauty from a purely Darwinian perspective.
Jan 29, Kara Babcock rated it it was ok Shelves: history , culture , read , science , non-fiction , from-library , philosophy. I am at war with myself. The feminist in me, who has been taking philosophy courses and reading books that challenge contemporary notions about gender, regards much of culture as a construction, something abstract and even arbitrary that we should alter to improve the status of various groups of people.
The scientist in me, who reads books about genetics and ponders how amazing it is that we're programmed to learn how to talk but have developed writing as a skill, not an innate ability. These tw I am at war with myself. These two selves often conflict, as biological determinism clashes with cultural relativism, and I find myself forced to walk carefully the line between the two. I never thought I would have to do this for art! In The Art Instinct , Denis Dutton challenges the commonplace assertion that our notions of what constitutes art and what we find aesthetically pleasing are entirely constructs of our culture.
Rather, his thesis is that evolution plays a large role in our tastes. We prefer savanna-like landscapes because it hearkens to our homes of the past; we place a value on skill and creativity because these are useful traits in a mate. Overall, Dutton insists that art criticism must be rooted in an evolutionary perspective he seems to like using evolutionary psychology as a poster-child rather than any particular school of thought based only on culture.
And that's the book, right there. Now you don't have to read it. You should be. The Art Instinct has such a great premise, but, like so many books, the execution fails to fulfil that potential. Dutton's writing is stultifying at best, arrogant at worst, and always more loquacious than necessary. It takes him forever to get to the point—he loves lists in which each point is several paragraphs long.
And for such a short book, Dutton spends remarkably little of it discussing art itself. Many pages he devotes to explanations of evolution—helpful, yes, but sometimes tangential. And unlike his evolutionary asides, he seldom goes into detail about the theories of art criticism he debunks for us, so much of that went over my head. Dutton does some things right.
He does not focus exclusively on Old Master paintings although they are there. He talks about literature and music as well. I really enjoyed chapter 6, "The Uses of Fiction," in which Dutton makes a strong case for fiction being a product of natural selection rather than mere by-products.
Also in this chapter is the best glimpse at the argument Dutton tries to make, the idea that art or the eponymous "art instinct" is an innate concept universal to every culture. In that respect, I agree with Dutton's assertion that cultural relativism should not dismiss other cultures' creative works because "they don't have our concept of art.
But I didn't enjoy it. This is not even a very academic book, despite constant name-dropping and enough quotations of Steven Pinker to qualify him for co-authorship. Seldom do I read a book which is just written in such an unsatisfactory way that I dislike following the author's arguments. Thus, even if Dutton has managed to convince me of his thesis, he has achieved the even greater feat of doing it while boring me too. The Art Instinct is successful, then, in showing evolution's role in the arts.
I won't dismiss all of art as stemming from evolutionary roots and I don't think Dutton is trying to argue this, but it could easily be seen that way. Culture still has a role to play—evolution might influence the desirably body types, but fads and fashions contribute to changing representations throughout history.
Even so, the way Dutton advances his argument leaves me with a distinctly apathetic attitude toward the entire book. It is very "ho-hum. The Art Instinct does not do this. It sort of loafs around in the lobby of one's critical cortex, half-heartedly attempting to hand leaflets to passing neurons.
I have a passing interest in aesthetics, in the sense that I have taken enough philosophy to know I need to read more about it sometime soon, lest I have a vast gap in my philosophical knowledge. Unfortunately, The Art Instinct does little to fill this gap; and while it held my aesthetic interest, it did not stoke the fire like I had hoped.
Dutton's just not charismatic enough, not compelling enough, to make this book great. Apr 28, Duncan Berry rated it liked it Shelves: neuro , art-history , history , theory. A modestly competent popularization of the evolutionary psychology of artistic expression.
While there is a fairly decent representation of more recent speculations on the topic — the survival-, fitness- and sexual selection-value of artistic "activity — Dutton completely ignores the notion that the idea of an "art instinct" has a long and glorious pedigree outside the Darwinian intellectual trajectory.
When I was first thinking about these matters as an undergrad in the lates, there was only o A modestly competent popularization of the evolutionary psychology of artistic expression. When I was first thinking about these matters as an undergrad in the lates, there was only one author who had raised this issue. To write an entire volume with this title and NOT include a single reference to Alois Riegl is simply unconscionable and irresponsible.
Back then, and until the mid- to lates, there was only a handful of esoteric passages from Riegl available in English translation. Now, with almost his entire corpus available not only in English but in paperback, no less, there was simply no excuse to ignore this seminal thinker on the emergence, psychology, biology and history of art.
Of course, Riegl, coined the term Kunstwollen for this "art instinct," and because of its shimmering, neo-Nietzschean lexical resonances, it has been something of a lightening rod for art historians and critics since Meyer Schapiro lanced the intellectual boil that centered on its use see Schapiro's devastating critique of the so-called "New Vienna School" of , which closes the anthology published by Christopher Wood under the title The Vienna School Reader.
Politics and Art Historical Method in the s in , over a decade before Dutton undertook his discussion. So, while I find it to be a useful source for locating themes in the secondary and scholarly literature, this is definitely NOT a book to savor — from an aesthetic, literary or intellectual point of view.
I suspect that portions of this work were written while drunk, given the blazing confidence of some of its assertions. Dutton's exploration of what primitive, evolutionarily-derived characteristics of the human species drive our interest in making and appreciating art today is built on two premises that permeate to the point of stifling the analysis, in my view the exercise: 1 that there is a definable, intrinsic and essential human nature; and that 2 there is a definable, intrinsic essenc I suspect that portions of this work were written while drunk, given the blazing confidence of some of its assertions.
Dutton's exploration of what primitive, evolutionarily-derived characteristics of the human species drive our interest in making and appreciating art today is built on two premises that permeate to the point of stifling the analysis, in my view the exercise: 1 that there is a definable, intrinsic and essential human nature; and that 2 there is a definable, intrinsic essence of what is Art.
He believes that as long as you buy 1 , marketed with purportedly an appeal to scientific authority based on evolution rather than religious dogma , he can get away with 2 and pretend that he's doing something other than shoring up orthodox assumptions about what artistic endeavors are and mean. The surface discussion of evolutionary science married to what is really a collection of philosophy of aesthetics musings seems a little gimmicky.
It's old wine in a new bottle probably labeled 'biodynamic'. He's at his most insufferable in the chapter fretting over Duchamp's Fountain , admitting finally that it does count as Art by his own criteria, but still sore about it. That said, I'll acknowledge I was delighted by the chapter on why we love fictional narratives although even there, I think he for the convenience of his argument elides the difference between storyteller and audience.
The analysis was often stimulating in its individual parts, but overall disorganized. I suspect Dutton privately intended this book to be taken as a work of Art as he defines it, in part as a singularly arresting window into individual genius. I pass no judgement on whether the author is himself a genius, but this work is not that - it will not end conversations or suspend them, at least, with dazzled reverence , but it may start them.
In that sense, it is like much great art - but so are a lot of other things. Apr 11, Jeff rated it really liked it. For the past 50 years or so, most discussions about art and its meanings have been based in either semiotics or phenomenology. Discourse either focused on how art in whatever medium functioned as a language, or it focused not on the construction of art but rather the experience of the perceiver.
We can debate the speculative nature of this "science," but the viewpoint on the arts is refreshing, simply because it poses a "third path," if you will, to semiotics and phenomenology. Dutton is a persuasive writer. Jul 14, David rated it really liked it Shelves: art. So why are the best selling calendars in Africa made up from scenes in the foothills of North America?
Why are snake statues placed on buildings to frighten away birds in New Zealand when there are no snakes in the country? What makes us like art? Dutton brings several almost unconnected elements together to build his theory. I'm not sure he answers everything he brings up or I buy it but he made me stop to ponder quite a few things about art and culture. Sadly he passed away recently. A wise m So why are the best selling calendars in Africa made up from scenes in the foothills of North America?
A wise man. Mar 15, Jerry Wall rated it really liked it. Art, as a subject of awe, wonder, revelation, emotion, appreciation, and more, has been with us since we developed sentience. This book traces with support from evolution as explained by Darwin and others how the appreciation of a landscape vista or a well sung song or well played musical instrument, follows an evolutionary path. Book subtitle -- Beauty, Pleasure and human evolution is telling and compelling. Aesthetic taste, argues Denis Dutton, is an evolutionary trait, and is shaped by natural selection.
It's not, as almost all contemporary art criticism and academic theory would have it, "socially constructed". The human appreciation for art is innate, and certain artistic values are universal across cultures, such as a preference for landscapes that, like the ancient savannah, feature water and distant trees.
If people from Africa to Alaska prefer images that would have appealed to our hominid ancestors, what does that mean for the entire discipline of art history? Author Denis Dutton. Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing.
Release 01 July Subjects Art Sociology Nonfiction. Search for a digital library with this title Search by city, ZIP code, or library name Learn more about precise location detection. View more libraries The Art Instinct.
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