"Art for Life's Sake"
Chuzzlewit, I must confess that my attitude towards Art is very like Christopher's attitude towards God: It just is, dammit! It just exists! ART RULES! And so all these efforts at defining what it is, and what it is not, are just so many blind men feeling up the elephant....<g>
Hence I have read very little in aesthetic theory; frankly, I am impatient with it. The aesthetic experience is what counts for me, and I do not feel the need to rationalize it.
Nevertheless, in searching for ammunition in a reluctant effort to defend a cause that needs no defending <g>, I turned up a couple of books that might be of interest to you. I haven't read either of them, myself, so I can't really say that I personally am "recommending" them. But the author (a neighbor of yours in Seattle, incidentally) has created quite a stir by approaching the arts from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology. Might be right up your alley!
Ellen Dissanayake:
What Is Art For?
Homo Aestheticus : Where Art Comes from and Why
From jacket blurb of the first book:
"What Is Art For?" offers a new and unprecedentedly
comprehensive theory of the evolutionary significance of art. Art, meaning
not only visual art, but music, poetic language, dance, and performance,
is for the first time regarded from a biobehavioral or ethological
viewpoint. It is shown to be a biological necessity in human existence and
a fundamental characteristic of the human species.... In this provocative
study, Ellen Dissanayake examines art along with play and ritual as human
behaviors that "make special," and proposes that making special is an
inherited tendency as intrinsic to the human species as speech or
toolmaking. She claims that the arts evolved as a means of making socially
important activities memorable and pleasurable, and thus have been
essential to human survival.... Avoiding simplism and reductionism, this
original approach permits a fresh look at old questions about the origin,
nature, purpose, and value of art. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and
integrates a number of diverse fields: human ethology; evolutionary
biology; the psychology and philosophy of art; physical and cultural
anthropology; "primitive" and prehistoric art; Western cultural history;
and children's art.....
humanitas.ucsb.edu
From a review of the second book (in a sociobiology newsletter):
Dissanayake's revolutionary idea is that art is not an epiphenomenon, as suggested by mainstream, old guard aestheticians, but a necessary part of human existence. In fact, without art, she argues, human beings may not have survived the selection process.
jurix.rechten.rug.nl
ART RULES!
Joan
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