The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
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Overview
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.
In a groundbreaking new book that does for art what Stephen Pinker’s The Language Instinct did for linguistics, Denis Dutton revolutionizes our understanding of art and overturns a century of art theory and criticism.
WEB CELEBRITY: Denis Dutton’s Arts & Letters Daily website is routinely cited as one of the web’s best and is a favorite of intellectuals around the world, receiving 3 million hits a month. Dutton will promote the book online at www.theartinstinct.com. Thanks to AL Daily, he has connections with every major book review and opinion magazine.
FRONTIER WHERE SCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY MEET HUMANITIES: Like bestsellers such as The Language Instinct and Stumbling Towards Happiness, The Art Instinct uses science to give startling new insight on a familiar subject.
HOT CONTROVERSY: By assaulting the very foundation of modern art criticism and history, Dutton is sure to make many academics furious. Expect fiery debates in print venues such as the New York Times and the New York Review of Books as artists and scientists duke it out.
BRILLIANTLY ACCESSIBLE: Dutton explains subjects - evoluionary psychology and art theory - that are often considered dense and challenging in an accessible, provocative way that will appeal to a broad trade audience, as well as those interested in art and evolution.
This book marks out the future of the humanities -- connecting aesthetics and criticism to an understanding of human nature from the cognitive and biological sciences. Denis Dutton has given as much thought to this topic as anyone alive today. With his erudition, insight, and engaging style, Dutton has made a bold and original contribution to this exciting new field.
Medal for service to science awarded by the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1998
- Title: The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
- Author: Denis Dutton
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
- Print Publication Date: 2009
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 288
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781608191932, 9781608190553, 1608190552, 1608191931
- Resource ID: LLS:9781608191932
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T15:19:57Z
Denis Dutton founded Arts & Letters Daily and continues to edit the website, one of the Guardian's "best websites in the world," and one of the most heavily trafficked sites anywhere for news and opinion in science, the arts, and politics. He founded and still edits Philosophy and Literature, a highly successful scholarly journal published by Johns Hopkins University Press. He is a professor of the philosophy of art at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.