Synopsis
The Art Instinct combines two of the most fascinating and contentious disciplines, art and evolutionary science, in a provocative new work that will revolutionize the way art itself is perceived. 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? Dutton argues, with forceful logic and hard evidence, that art criticism needs to be premised on an understanding of evolution, not on abstract "theory." Sure to provoke discussion in scientific circles and an uproar in the art world, The Art Instinct offers radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.
The Barnes & Noble Review
God bless contrarians. When the chumps in the audience start clapping on the downbeat, it's the contrarians who score one for hipness by hitting the backbeat; roving around like members of some cerebral street gang, they buck trends, scorn fashions -- always smirking -- and generally look for a thinker's scrap where first principles can be upended. Contrarianism can, of course, become a lazy fetish; dogmatically taking the unpopular side of every issue is an easy way to get attention, if you don't mind criticism. But at its best, contrarianism means arriving at one's own conclusions -- the best argument wins -- regardless of whether others agree, and especially when they don't. This spirit occasionally produces books that are as bracing as a good, hard slap.