Darwinian Arts and Beauty

Amanda Limongi

Universal Signatures 1. Expertise2. Non-utilitarian Pleasure3. Style4. Criticism5. Imitation6. Special Focus7. Imagination

Dutton, 2000

Art as an Adaptation• Cross-Cultural Existence• Ancestry• Young Children• Sources of Pleasure• Costly

Art’s Adaptive Function?

• Cognition• Propaganda• Sexual Display• Sociality• Stress Reduction/Coping

Art & Natural Selection

• Sociality• Improvement of Skills• Appreciation of Skills

Art & Sexual Selection• Display Hypothesis• Costly Signaling• Status and Hierarchy• “Artistic Eye”

Pinker: Art as an Adaptive By-Product

1. Hunger for Status2. Aesthetic Pleasure3. Ability to Design Artifacts

Special Case: Fiction• “To instruct and to delight”• Four main themes:

1. Love2. Sex3. Personal Threat4. Threat to Kin

Evolved Aesthetics• Komar and Melamid – “America’s Most Wanted”

Evolved Aesthetics

UkraineKenya

IcelandDenmark

Portugal

Sources