Every culture we know of, every tribe, current or historic, tells stories. They all make music. They might not all do watercolors, but they all do some sort of representational art. Why is this? After all, storytelling, music, and painting are far less effective in putting food on the table than, say, hunting or planting. In examining a cultural universal, like making art, it makes sense to seek an answer from evolution. No one scientifically doubts that we have our bodies and physiology due to evolution (although religious doubters continue to pipe up). Over the past three decades, we have seen evolutionary explanations for human sexuality, language, even religion. Can Darwin's principles be applied to our diligence in making art, and our of love of art? Denis Dutton thinks so, and in _The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution_ (Bloomsbury Press), he has put forward a cogent and entertaining evolutionary explanation of our artistic impulses. Dutton, who teaches the philosophy of art, and also founded and edits the popular and useful website _Arts & Letters Daily_, has good grasps on art and evolution, and his explanations for artistic behavior and appreciation help us understand both disciplines.
If evolution explains art-making through all cultures, you'd expect some general agreement on, say, what paintings are beautiful. Statistics have been done, and it does seem that there is a consensus between cultures on what is the prettiest landscape. In the Pleistocene era, our ancestors were nomads. They would have liked the blue of water or of distant vegetation; it would have meant sustenance from good hunting grounds. Music is perhaps harder to explain. We need hearing as a way of understanding our surroundings, but the rhythmic, pitched sounds of music would seem to contribute nothing to survival ability. It may be that musical sounds helped the birth of language, and music with its associated dances may have helped with tribal cooperation and bonding. Stories, though, can have real and obvious survival advantages. Stories can convey facts; a fanciful folktale from the Yanomamo about jaguars, for instance, gives plenty of information and advice about how to live in an environment where jaguars are a threat. Fiction enables us to understand the mental experiences of others, not just of imagined characters, but of authors. Reading minds in this way is easily understood as having survival advantages for a social species like ourselves. Dutton believes that making art had origins as a display of skill that would lure prospective mates and intimidate potential rivals. Making art is an "extra", something that only a smart, vigorous individual could do, an individual that did not have to expend full resources on life's basics. Art is a fitness display.
The scope of these ideas allows Dutton to bring in many thought-provoking examples, and some of them are a real surprise. Marcel Duchamp's placing a urinal on a pedestal and calling it art almost a hundred years ago has been a subject of controversy ever since; yes, says, Dutton, it qualifies pretty well in the checklist he provides of the characteristics of artistic expression. Forgeries are a fascinating case; if they are so well done that they fool even the experts, they must have artistic merit, but why is it that we are offended by them? Dutton explains that evolution has destined us to expect and insist upon authenticity in art. He explains also why, when referring to a different culture, "They have a different concept of art from ours" is a vacuous conceit. He introduces us to various theorists within his own discipline, and openly takes many of them to task. This is a work written in a popular style, and those who enjoy the ideas of such popularizers as Stephen J. Gould or Steven Pinker will find some of those ideas nicely argued against. It might make some readers uncomfortable to consider that making art and appreciating art, characteristics that are among those that make humans unique, could be best explained by spirals of chromosomes. The artistic impulse will always remain mysterious; Dutton's examining it as instinct has brought forth a volume of intriguing thought experiments, philosophical puzzles, and ingenious speculation.
