The Aesthetic Animal 0190927925, 9780190927929

The Aesthetic Animal answers the ultimate questions of why we adorn ourselves, embellish our things and surroundings, an

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The Aesthetic Animal
 0190927925,  9780190927929

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
The Aesthetic Animal......Page 10
Copyright......Page 11
Contents......Page 12
Preface......Page 14
Introduction: The Aesthetic Impulse......Page 18
1. An Animal in Search of Stimulation for Pleasure and Need: Two Stories on the Forces that Drive Us Toward Art and Aesthetics......Page 32
2. The First Humans and the First Art......Page 40
3. What a Sexy Tale! Key Stimuli and Attraction: Aesthetics in the Animal Kingdom......Page 60
4. The Woman in Red and the Man with the Chrome-​Plated Wheels: Aesthetics and Key Stimuli in the Human World......Page 70
5. The Human Peacock: Body Ornamentation and Artistic Behavior from Tribal Society to Modern Primitives......Page 94
6. Who Lives Here? Decoration, Design, and Ornamentation on Objects and Surroundings......Page 112
7. Art and the Brain’s Reward System: Brain Processes and Neuroaesthetics......Page 124
8. Fiction and Narrative: The Function of Symbolic Aesthetics......Page 134
9. Summing Up the Aesthetic Impulse: Adaptation, Cheesecake, or . . . ?......Page 146
10. Opening the Doors of Aesthetics: Concluding Remarks......Page 156
Notes......Page 164
References......Page 168
Index......Page 176

Citation preview

The Aesthetic Animal

The Aesthetic Animal Henrik Høgh-Olesen

1

1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978–0–19–092792–9 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

CONTENTS Preface xiii

Introduction: The Aesthetic Impulse 1 1. An Animal in Search of Stimulation for Pleasure and Need: Two Stories on the Forces that Drive Us Toward Art and Aesthetics 15 2. The First Humans and the First Art 23 3. What a Sexy Tale! Key Stimuli and Attraction: Aesthetics in the Animal Kingdom 43 4. The Woman in Red and the Man with the Chrome-Plated Wheels: Aesthetics and Key Stimuli in the Human World 53 5. The Human Peacock: Body Ornamentation and Artistic Behavior from Tribal Society to Modern Primitives 77 6. Who Lives Here? Decoration, Design, and Ornamentation on Objects and Surroundings 95 7. Art and the Brain’s Reward System: Brain Processes and Neuroaesthetics 107 8. Fiction and Narrative: The Function of Symbolic Aesthetics 117 9. Summing Up the Aesthetic Impulse: Adaptation, Cheesecake, or . . . ? 129 10. Opening the Doors of Aesthetics: Concluding Remarks 139 Notes 147 References 151 Index 159

PREFACE I have chills running down my spine. My arms and legs tingle as if charged by static electricity. The hairs on my arms and neck stand up and my skin breaks out in gooseflesh as though hit by a bout of fever. Then I start to feel a lump in my throat. My voice becomes thick and my eyes start to water. My entire system is reacting as though I am having a powerful allergic reaction. But I am not ill. I am in a state of peaceful bliss. I am looking at something beautiful and it moves me. It is that simple and wonderful. What has moved me is the Villa Majorelle in Marrakech, Morocco, the former residence of the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent—an art deco building in intense cobalt blue, turquoise, and lemon yellow colors surrounded by tall lime-green cacti, palm trees, and violet bougainvillea flowers in bloom. I drove through the snow-clad landscape of Denmark. I  waited all night in a deserted airport. And now—around 36 hours since I last lay in a bed—I am standing in the dry heat of 26°C under the glaring desert sun in the Jardin Majorelle, feeling my sensory receptors firing at the sight of this color explosion. It is (almost) as pleasurable as great sex, and a number of questions arise: What kind of peculiar animal decorates its surroundings with such aesthetic care? Plants, colors, architecture—everything organized according to an inner aesthetic idea. Moreover, why are we moved to tears when these efforts are successful? We are all familiar with the puzzling phenomenon of being moved by certain shapes, colors, sounds, and tunes. This aesthetic sensibility is simply one of the main ingredients in the many highlights of life. But why is that, and why on Earth do we even have these delightful sensory experiences? These questions preoccupy me. If they preoccupy you, too, then this book has fallen into the right hands. A preface is usually written at the end of the writing process and this case is no exception. What is just about to begin for the reader has just ended for the author, and now the two parties meet in the doorway, so to speak. Although not a place fit for a long conversation, before we go our separate ways, I would like to mention the people who have helped me along the way. Jacob Wamberg, professor of Art History at the University of Aarhus, has read the first drafts of the manuscript and contributed his inspiring comments. So have Dr. Mathias Clasen and Dr. Alexandra Kratchmer of the School of Communication and Culture at the University of Aarhus. It has been valuable to me to have professionals with a background in the humanities read and

xiii

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comment on my evolutionary and behavioral psychology analyses of the aesthetic impulse before introducing them to a bigger audience, and I owe them a debt of gratitude. Charlotte Bentsen, MA in English literature, has assisted in translating my idiosyncratic sentences into grammatically correct English. Then there are my friends. My friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Dalsgaard has contributed immeasurable input. He has read the manuscript several times. He has returned it with red lines and suggestions such as “explain,” “elaborate,” or “leave out,” and I have generally taken his advice. I want to thank my friend, director, and gallerist, Torsten Hansen, for a great many discussions on aesthetics, art, and what “turns people on.” Torsten has a practical relationship with aesthetics. He makes a living out of selling art and beautiful artifacts that people simply need to own. And I have learned a lot from this practical knowledge. I also want to thank my partner, Anne-Charlotte Bo, for endless conversations about art, aesthetics, and design and for always providing constructive criticism and inspiration for my projects. Finally, I want to thank my children, William and Hedvig. They have inherited my interest in art and music and they are thus never afraid to make a quick contribution when I am musing on these subjects. This, too, is educational for me. It has been a pleasure to complete this study. I hope the result is an equally pleasurable experience to read. Marrakech January 2018

Introduction THE AESTHETIC IMPULSE

It is cold, dark, and damp. The space is tight and small so you need to constantly bend over to avoid hitting your head against the overhang. We are now more than two kilometers inside the mountain, and something has been stirring above our heads. Bats! Black flapping shadows that, miraculously, never hit us, but startled by our footsteps and the flickering light from our headlights, do what all scared animals do: empty their bowels and escape. It is very effective in films, but right now I would rather be rid of it. I have spent the past few months writing to the French culture authorities and now I am finally here. In Dordogne in the southwest of France, where our ancestors settled more than 40,000 years ago. The walls are covered in bear claw marks, and there are big round hollows in the bedrock that have been dug out over millennia by bears tossing and turning in their hibernation. And then I  suddenly notice them! Completely different markings. Made by our own species. And the reason I am here in the first place. More than 2.5 kilometers into the cave, the ceiling is decorated with paintings and engravings of horses, bison, mammoths, rhinoceros, and ibex. I feel hot and cold at the same time. This ornamentation defies reason. Why on Earth have humans taken the trouble to do this in such an unreachable place? What pointless effort. What remarkable exertion. No other animal would ever do the same. I am a psychologist and an expert on human behavior, but this is so overwhelmingly peculiar that I am finding it hard to describe it in words. Any new insight starts with curiosity, and mine is so great that I  want to share it with the reader. I have become aware of something that we humans do. We adorn ourselves. We decorate our things. We embellish our homes. This is a curious aesthetic behavioral pattern on which we spend vast amounts of time, energy, and resources and which manifests itself in virtually everything we do 1

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from mindless and meaningless ways of passing time to silliness, festivity, and vanity and to what is central to being human. It is something specifically human and biologically mysterious that no other animals do, to this degree, and that does not even occur among our closest great ape relatives. The aesthetic impulse to adorn ourselves and our surroundings comes so naturally to us that it is easily overlooked, and it leaves anyone trying to describe it with the privileged problem of not knowing where to start and where to end. In principle, we could start anywhere, so why not simply start with what is right there in front of us. Right now, I am sitting at my desk at work writing these lines. And what does my workspace look like? Try to imagine it. I need room to work and provide supervision to students, so there must be a table, a computer, and a couple of chairs. I must also be able to see, so a lightbulb above the table is also necessary. If these things are in place, I can do my job. The walls do not need to be painted and the lightbulb does not need a shade. I do not need carpets, textiles, patterns, and colors on the table and chairs either, and plants, pictures, and all kinds of knick-knack are, of course, completely unnecessary in a workspace. So, a barren room with a table, a couple of chairs, and a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Was this how you pictured my office? Probably not. I  would not be able to thrive in such a room, none of my colleagues’ rooms are like that, and if my students were to come to an office at the university that looked as described, they would find it conspicuous and think that the professor occupying the office was probably rather weird. My office has pictures. It has plants and carpets, and the furniture fabric is color-coordinated in tones of red, ochre, and dusty orange. Even the note board, which is supposed to be a practical thing that keeps track of my appointments, has gradually been taken over by aesthetics. It now holds so many children’s drawings and postcards that there is hardly any room for notes and messages. Our homes and cities are likewise filled with items that go beyond practical necessity. Our houses are full of colors, designs, patterns, and ornaments on walls, ceilings, floors, furniture, linen, and kitchenware. The cup we drink from has color and painted images on it, and the ceramics are structured in a way that is pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the touch. Our walls are decorated with pictures, patterned wallpaper, and shelves with vases, knick-knacks, and things we like, which gives the room its atmosphere and which makes it feel like home to us. With the different shapes and colors of plants in our gardens and parks, we shape a pleasing visual sensation for our eyes to rest upon. Even when we cook, eat, and set the table, the look, and not just the flavor, is carefully considered. Our body aesthetics alone could fill a whole book. We paint our bodies and we dye and cut our hair and beards in elaborate styles. We pierce, brand, tattoo, and ornament our skin. We decorate ourselves with jewelery, feathers, fur, and

Introduction: The Aesthetic Impulse } 3

leather; we put colors and patterns on the clothes we wear, and we rub oils and heavy, sweet perfumes on our skin. We make an extra effort out of ourselves and our surroundings when we party and celebrate so that we are literally gorging on different sensory perceptions. We fill the world with music, song, and dance, and we decorate the night sky with fireworks. We work for months on perfecting this aesthetic extravagance. How much time, money, and effort does the Olympics opening ceremony or a carnival or a festival or a wedding cost? And yet we continuously find the time, money, and resources for these beautiful, superfluous, and over-the-top events, and we do so universally. Man is an animal among other animals on Earth but also a very special animal: an aesthetic animal. It is a being that embellishes itself and its surroundings; that creates art, music, and dance; and that spends vast amounts of time and resources doing so, as if it had nothing better to do. Thus, the aesthetic impulse is a characteristic of the human species that can be found throughout all cultures regardless of time, place, and material status. However, the impulse is obviously not unaffected by these matters. At a time when our ancestors were barely clothed and had little food they went deep into dark caves to decorate them from floor to ceiling—and these were not even the caves in which they lived. Spears and bowls were barely been finished before they are adorned with ornaments, symbols, and figures. It is as if the aesthetic impulse is a primary impulse in its own right on a par with the need to find shelter and food! Why do we do this? Shouldn’t a species that only just has the bare necessities spend its time and effort on something other than artistic decorations that play no part in the function of the object and that do not bring us any closer to the goal of survival? You would think so, but these priorities still exist today among tribes and poor people all over the world. The San people in the Kalahari Desert, Australian Aborigines, and the Inuit people of the north all tempt fate with a harsh existence in some of the world’s least hospitable environments, and yet they still find the time and energy to decorate their tools, weapons, and kitchenware and to carve beautiful images of the mythological creatures of their beliefs in bone, bark, rock, and sand—for instance the Eland, the Lizard, the Rainbow Serpent, the Mother of the Sea. Taking a walk through the favelas of Rio or Sao Paolo, you will find destitution but also aesthetic energy. Houses, walls, and interiors are painted in a multitude of colors (Figure I.1). Glossy magazine pictures of film stars are intermingled with religious icons and blinking fairy lights. The decorations from last year’s carnival are still up. From the moment you can afford a washing-up brush you start to think of what color to choose—should it be red or green? Why?

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FIGURE I.1.

Favela Rio de Janeiro.

Source: Skreidzeleu/Shutterstock.com

When asked directly, very few can actually give a satisfactory answer. It is not like it is easy. If you see me with a hammer, you can ask what I need it for and I can answer that I need to hammer a nail. If you ask me why I want to hammer the nail, I can answer that I want to hang a picture on the wall. And if you then ask me why I want to hang a picture on the wall, I can answer: Because I think it looks nice. But if you then proceed to ask me why I think it looks nice, then I will be at a loss for words. We have now reached a point of reason that cannot be explained further than because I do and because that is what we humans—of the species Homo sapiens—have always done. In fact, we are dumbfounded and lapse into silence when confronted with the ultimate whys behind our natural inclinations and urges. Nevertheless, it is this silence that I want to challenge because we must be able to come closer to the answer than that. Nature simply would not allow a species to waste so much time and effort on an activity completely unrelated to the survival and well-being of that species. Consequently, the aesthetic impulse cannot be meaningless and superficial. This is likely also why the aesthetic impulse is present from the dawn of both the history of the species and the history of each individual. This impulse appears to be—like language and tool making—an innate disposition of human nature; something we just do that does not require learning and develops spontaneously, but which is, of course, shaped by culture.1 Infants spontaneously

Introduction: The Aesthetic Impulse } 5

follow and respond to song, music, and rhythmic activities. They spontaneously produce doodles on paper, in sand, mud, and spilled liquids, and they attentively follow the patterns that come out of this activity. This rhythmic, motoric creation activity is simultaneously pleasurable for them, and this pleasure sensation will stay with us through adulthood.2 Already at a very young age children spontaneously begin to dress up and paint and adorn themselves. Theses on the nature of art very rarely mention the quite significant fact that artistic experiences, processes, and presentations give us sensual experiences that are physically pleasurable, which makes us engaged, focused, stimulated, moved, and aroused.3 The fact that the aesthetic impulse is connected to lust indicates that this behavior may very well be of biological value, because one of the ways in which nature makes us do the things that are essential to our survival is by making these activities pleasurable and therefore attractive. This is why we do not need to be rewarded for eating and for having sex. These activities are rewarding in and of themselves.

The Functions of Artistic Behavior I am not the only one who has been wondering about the functions of artistic behavior in human life, and over time there have been different perspectives on this matter. In most of the world’s prehistoric and present societies, art is expressed in the context of religious and cultic ceremonies. According to the theological perspective, art in its original form cannot be separated from cult and thus cannot be separated from the basic human search for meaning of life and existence. Humans are predisposed to seek meaning, and art is one of the ways in which this search for meaning is expressed. But humans also live in groups based on a social hierarchy system and therefore seek status, build a pecking order, and compete with conspecifics for power. According to the sociocultural perspective, the search for meaning through art is therefore also a tool for power, which is used by those who set the agenda: What is good, beautiful, and wonderful; what can and should be appreciated? Thus, what persistent and revolutionary art products have in common is that they are perceived—through the sociocultural perspective—as tools of power that can be used for positioning, individually as well as in groups, in the fight for status that is continuously fought in societies based on social hierarchy. Art can have this function, and therefore the sociological perspective is not incorrect either. Through the view of anthropology, the social identity functions of art are considered as characteristics of a group or tribe’s culture, values, and history. Groups need to have an in-group connection and to mark their boundaries to outsiders. For this purpose, we make use of our signs and markings.4

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Within my own field—psychology—the hows and whats of aesthetics are brought into focus. Particular emphasis has been placed on aesthetic effects (stimuli, color, design, and pattern), as well as what degree of order, complexity, and ambiguity we are attracted to and that the brain considers pleasurable and engaging in a work of art.5 Furthermore, people within the field of personality psychology have dealt with whether this sensitivity and these aesthetic preferences correlate with certain personality features. Among other things, they have found that people who score high on traits like Stimulation Seeking and Openness in personality tests show greater interest in art than others and tend to like modern, abstract art, whereas people who score high on traits like Conscientiousness and Sociability are more inclined toward traditional, realistic art styles in which it is clear what the image depicts.6 The more ultimate questions of why we even exhibit such behavior and what functions the aesthetic impulse might serve have largely been left to psychoanalysts like Freud and Jung and their successors and thus to theoretical and speculative rather than practical, empirical, and experimental approaches. Freud, on the one hand, perceives art as he does dreams, slips of the tongue, fairy tales, and neurotic symptoms: as disguised and dissatisfactory instinctual urges of the sexual kind, which the conscious mind and society do not want to acknowledge and which therefore cannot be satisfied openly and directly, but must find an outlet through more indirect and symbolic means. Put briefly, we make art because we cannot satisfy our primary sexual and aggressive urges directly, within the given conditions of society. Art replaces the urge, and in this way art becomes displaced or sublimated satisfaction. Thus, art becomes a vent through which to let out steam when frustrations become too severe. This is good for the artist as well as society, as the wellexecuted artwork can, according to Freud, simultaneously function as surrogate wish fulfilment for others as well and thus be a kind of cultural pressure relief valve.7 For Jung, on the other hand, art cannot be reduced to a kind of displaced surrogate satisfaction or a symptom of the artist’s underlying frustrations. Rather, the artistic impulse is, according to him, an innate (archetypal), inner urge and a means to self-expression, self-realization, and self-knowledge (Jung 1966). Art may certainly serve all of these functions, from pressure relief valve to self-realization, as Freud and Jung claim and, as we shall see in Chapters 4 and 5, there is also a probable connection between sex and art, albeit a link different from the one proposed by Freud. But is the primary function of art really to serve as a pressure relief valve for our sexual and aggressive urges, or are there other reasons for the development of this behavioral pattern? I think there are other reasons, and that is what I will attempt to demonstrate in the following chapters.

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None of the aforementioned perspectives is wrong per se or mutually exclusive. However, none of them is a sufficient explanation, alone or combined, and there are several reasons for this. First, they engage the question from the wrong starting point. Most often, they start with Art and art with a capital “A” is accessible for exploration for only a few. However, a far more basic behavioral impulse lies behind artistic activity: The aesthetic impulse—or the human need to embellish itself and its surroundings, and its desire to fill time and space with song, music, dance, and stories. This impulse is universal and, once we understand what feeds and motivates this behavior, we can understand why some people create art and what functions this behavior serves in human life. Second, the aforementioned perspectives fully or partially neglect the fact that man is a biological creature with an evolved history. Moreover, even though aesthetics and art normally fall under the category of culture, it is possible that creating culture is something natural for us humans and that we must therefore explore the human species’ evolved history to find the reason(s) that cannot otherwise be explained. An impulse is a natural, internal behavioral incentive that does not need external reward to exist. As we will see, a number of observations indicate that the aesthetic impulse is exactly such an inherent part of human nature and therefore a primary impulse in its own right:

• • • • •

The aesthetic impulse is present in all known present and past human cultures regardless of time, place, and material level. It occurs in our infants as an innate, pleasurable activity, which (like playing) does not need to be learned or rewarded in order to exist. The brain’s reward circuit is activated when we are presented with aesthetic experiences and objects. We voluntarily spend, as individuals and as a society, enormous amounts of time, effort, and resources on satisfying this impulse. Useless behavior without value that takes costly resources away from other useful activities is ruthlessly weeded out by selection during the evolutionary history of a species.

In addition, the aesthetic sense has several important functions, as we will see:

• • •

It may guide us toward what is biologically good for us, and help us choose the right fitness-enhancing items in our surroundings. Aesthetic behavior is a valid individual fitness indicator as well as a unifying social group marker. Aesthetically skilled individuals get more mating• possibilities, higher status, and more collaborative offers.

Thus, as I see it, there is no way around it. If we want to understand the distinctively human need to adorn ourselves and our surroundings—both the need

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to personally and actively create, decorate, and embellish and the ability to passively appreciate and enjoy these aesthetic works—we need to look into the evolutionary biology of the human species. We need to enter the psychological engine room and understand our basic programs, motives, and drives. As seen from this level of analysis, there are three distinctive species characteristics that stand out. First, as a species, humans are highly stimulation-seeking animals. We are, by nature, curious and exploring creatures who investigate our surroundings. Once our basic needs are fulfilled, we do not just passively exist but convert our calorie intake into new stimulation-seeking explorations in our environment and surroundings. Furthermore, humans live in groups based on a social hierarchy system, as already mentioned. We are social-hierarchic creatures who compete with conspecifics for resources and are allowed access to the basic necessities of life, which we all crave, according to our social status in the group. Sometimes this species characteristic is very pronounced, as with the Yanomami people in the jungle of South America, and other times less so, as with the more egalitarian San Bushmen of South Africa, but it is never absent. The need for status is a deep-rooted human motive that is fundamental for humans all over the world.8 Also in this respect, then, we resemble our primate relatives as well as a vast number of other social species with a pecking order such as dogs, horses, chickens, and all the other domesticated animals we surround ourselves with. Last but not least, humans are symbolic and “narrative” beings—animals in search of meaning. It is as natural for humans to create stories about who we are, why we are here, and how the world works as it is for a spider to create webs. In this respect, we are unique. Nothing about the aesthetic impulse makes any sense if these ultimate species characteristics are disregarded and left out. It is therefore in this basic programming that we begin our investigation.

The Structure of the Book In Chapter 1 we start out with the most basic driving forces behind the aesthetic impulse: the human animal’s ecological living conditions and our ultimate species characteristics as neophile and stimulation-seeking carnivores and food opportunists. Humans turn calorie intake into aesthetic activity, exploration, and play, for instance, instead of sleeping up to 16 hours a day as the big cats do after a successful hunt. Our stimulation-seeking nature and the concept of the optimal stimulation level (OSN) are mandatory for understanding the aesthetic impulse; that is, how and why the aesthetic forms change and develop, and why we are motivated to art and aesthetics both as a species and as individuals.

Introduction: The Aesthetic Impulse } 9

So far, two main points of view have divided the research. One views relief, energy, and celebration as the main feelings that arouse our need to decorate ourselves and our surroundings, while the other views anxiety, insecurity, and our need to control these feelings as the cause for this artistic activity. So is it pleasure or need that drives us to this behavior? On the whole, the aesthetic field is full of absolute and seemingly incompatible oppositions through which people have, over time, passionately divided into positions that may only seem to be mutually exclusive. In Chapter 1, I argue that the human need for stimulation is a decisive factor behind the aesthetic impulse and simultaneously show how we, by considering the need for stimulation, can actually end the aforementioned opposition between pleasure and need, celebration and anxiety. In Chapter 2 we follow the aesthetic impulse back to human prehistory and take a look at prehistoric art. In order to establish our aesthetic inclinations as a primary impulse—and not just as a surplus phenomenon appearing in high cultures in times of plenty, when people have no better things to do—it is important to track this impulse back to its first expression and to the material living conditions at the time. Here, it is interesting who these people are in terms of psychology. Who were the creators of the prehistoric art and what motivated this activity? Here, too, there are different theories and oppositions. In Chapter 3 we go back even further in evolutionary history and examine whether there are traces of the aesthetic impulse in other species. Do other species have a sense of aesthetics? Do they make aesthetic choices, and do they exhibit examples of aesthetic behavior? Among other things, we will look at bird song and crane dance. We follow the fascinating bowerbirds as they create their remarkable and colorful constructions. And we join in as experiments are conducted with chimpanzees in the lab. In Chapter 4 we look at how key stimuli and brain programming affect our own species aesthetics and determine which shapes, colors, and landscapes we are attracted to and consider beautiful. Like other animals, we are predisposed to respond to certain key stimuli that have been associated with an expectation of functionality, fitness, and increased well-being. In other words, the perception of beauty represents a strong internal indicator by which it pays to be guided in order to gain various benefits. In this investigation, we enter the micro-processes of artistic creation. We look at the aesthetic effects that make up a work of art and why something captivates and fascinates us. Everything beautiful is aesthetic, but not everything aesthetic is beautiful in the traditional sense of the word. We also decorate ourselves and our surroundings for the purpose of intimidation and threat and to signal strength, danger, and power. Similarly, we have a pleasurable fascination with topics that signal dominance and horror. Human and animal skulls can be beautiful and fascinating in their own unique way (any tattoo artist can attest to that), and we will

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also attempt to understand this compelling world of stimuli. The right embellishment can transform a trivial everyday object into an overwhelming power object—a kind of fetish that means the world to us and costs a fortune. How does something like this happen? It is the psychological mechanisms rather than the market mechanisms of the art world that we will concentrate on here. In Chapter 5 we focus on the human need for embellishment and artistic expression through song, dance, and music. From the rituals of tribal societies to the “modern primitives” of our time, who also paint, pierce, and tattoo themselves. Furthermore, we touch upon fashion and self-promotion. Why do we do these things? Here, as well, there are different theories at play. Is it due to sexually selected behavioral traits, whereby those who stand out and flaunt their special qualities are selected as partners and therefore further their genetic heritage? Is the artistic energy they exhibit reliable evidence of fitness, which lets the world know that these are good, strong genes exactly like the peacock’s tail? Or is it, rather, that we must understand these exertions through their collective value as social markers that unite us and inform the world that we are dealing with a close-knit group united by a shared mind-set? None of these functions needs be mutually exclusive. In Chapter  6 we follow the aesthetic impulse full circle and explore the human need to decorate objects and surroundings, as well as the marking of property and status in the public domain. Furthermore, we look at phenomena such as folk art, street art, and graffiti. In the modern city, a battle is fought to be seen and to make your mark. Graffiti may be considered vandalism by most people and art only by a few, yet it is a fascinating expression of the aesthetic impulse. Why spend time and money on adorning objects and walls that are not your own when you face the risk of being fined and imprisoned if you are caught? The purpose of the Chapter 6 is to show that such extravaganzas, too, make biological sense, thereby strengthening the argument that aesthetic behavior is natural for humans. Decorations signal personal fitness, ability, care, effort, resources—as well as power—because they ensure social status, for instance to attract more sexual partners. Like our body ornamentation, decoration is immediate communication transmitting key social and evolutionary information to the surroundings. Moreover, we get the opportunity to discuss whether the visual designs and ornaments used by different ethnic groups to embellish their things spontaneously capture the essential aspects of the existential, material, and social conditions of the life of individual groups. The purpose of Chapter 7 is twofold. We take the investigation of the aesthetic impulse into the human brain to understand, first, why only we—and not our closest relatives among the primates so alike to us in many other ways—express ourselves aesthetically, and second, how the brain reacts when presented with aesthetic material. The characteristics of the human species

Introduction: The Aesthetic Impulse } 11

(our search for stimulation, our social-hierarchic nature, and our symbolic storytelling nature) are connected to the brain’s evolutionary history and to the development of the different parts of the brain from the ancient structures of the reptilian brain to the old mammalian brain to the frontal lobe in the new cerebral cortex. Somewhere along the road on the journey from animal to human animal, the aesthetic impulse developed. Neuroaesthetics is a booming new area of research that currently benefits from great scientific attention and funding. This field has its opportunities and limitations, and we will also look at the latter. Brain scans are less useful when you are interested in the “why” of aesthetic behavior rather than the “how.” Nevertheless, some brain studies have been ground breaking. Neuroaesthetics offers us a pivotal argument for the key function of the aesthetic impulse in human lives. It shows us that the brain’s reward circuit is activated when we are presented with aesthetic objects and stimuli. And why reward a perception or an activity that is evolutionarily useless and worthless in relation to human existence? But we humans do not just adorn ourselves and our surroundings with shapes, colors, and patterns or create artistic and rhythmic compositions such as song, music, and dance. We also create stories and dramatic settings that deal with the theme of what it means to be human. This behavior is certainly not the least mysterious aspect of the aesthetic impulse, and we will take a close look at these symbolic and narrative ornamentations of our existence in Chapter 8. Why do we even spend that much time and resources on telling each other stories and dramatizing common human experiences? Which themes do these narratives revolve around? Are there universal themes? What function do these symbolic universes have for our development and survival as individuals and as a species? In Chapter 9 the threads from the different investigations are gathered, and the evolutionary functions and conditions behind the aesthetic impulse are outlined in a synthesizing model. One of the main discussions in the aesthetic field concerns whether artistic behavior should be considered a biological adaptation in its own right, and thus an innate behavioral repertoire with direct consequence to our survival and reproduction that has been passed down the genetic line through evolutionary selection, or whether this behavior should rather be considered a random byproduct that may hold certain advantages for us but that is basically a sideeffect of other adaptive processes. I argue for my stand in the adaptation/byproduct opposition and show how the viewpoints presented throughout the book can best be contained within the adaptation theory. Artistic expression and behavioral patterns are, as shown, some of the means with which we cultivate, regulate, and calibrate the brain, the cognitive apparatus, and the human motivational

12 { The Aesthetic Animal

systems. Moreover, a world without these elements would limit our ability to relate to other people, put ourselves in each other’s place, and respond creatively to the challenges in life. Chapter 10 concludes with showing the strength and limitations of the approach presented in this book in a discussion that highlights the differences between a classic humanistic approach and an evolutionary, behavioral approach. The aim is not to move aesthetics from the humanities and into behavioral psychology and other sciences. On the contrary, the aesthetic field is a house with many doors, and you will need several keys to open them—more and different keys than those used in this book. However, aesthetics and art are also behavior—that is, something our species does—and that is why behavioral sciences were prioritized. Furthermore, with behavioral and evolutionary psychology as tools, we can shine an extensive and important light on the big “why” of art and aesthetics. What remains now is to clarify a few central choices I have made in my approach to this topic. We will—as is evident—look at behavior. What we will call aesthetics or art is primarily certain recurring behavioral patterns that we consider to be pleasurable to do and observe and whose products we appreciate. According to behavioral psychology, every species has its own specific behavioral patterns and innate programs, dispositions, and tools, and it is therefore possible to study human behavior as you would that of any other species. According to evolutionary psychology, we must also understand these behavioral patterns and innate brain programs as solutions to the challenges and difficulties of the environment that members of that species have faced through evolutionary history. Thus, according to this assumption, when we humans spend time and effort on decorating ourselves and our surroundings, this behavior must somehow have been useful to us and helped us to survive, thrive, and reproduce with quality, otherwise we would not have been equipped with this impulse. What interests me is the aesthetic impulse itself, not the debate about what great art is. Nor is it the identification of what is “just” decoration and embellishment as opposed to what may at a given time and place be accepted as art in a particular culture. Not that there is no difference between these categories. Some art is certainly “greater” than other art, and some expressions of art are more complex and well crafted than others, but all these forms of art stem from the same basic human impulse, and that is why it is this impulse we must understand first. Because this study is an interdisciplinary examination that draws on knowledge from various fields and is of interest to people other than specialists, I have attempted to avoid esoteric jargon and to define the specific terms. And now to the matter at hand.

1 }

An Animal in Search of Stimulation for Pleasure and Need TWO STORIES ON THE FORCES THAT DRIVE US TOWARD ART AND AESTHETICS

Why do we create art and aesthetics? What motivates us? If we are to understand the driving forces behind the aesthetic impulse, we must try to understand the human animal’s existential and ecological living conditions. The human species belongs to the group of neophile animals. Neophilic behavior in an animal appears as the need to approach and investigate unfamiliar objects in the surroundings; neophobe behavior, on the other hand, is the need to avoid unfamiliar subjects and situations. In most species, neophilia is a passing characteristic of youth that is replaced with neophobia in the adult animal. But this is not the case with humans. We do get less mobile and stimulation-seeking with age, but we maintain a curiosity and fascination with new and unfamiliar phenomena throughout our whole lives, and we likewise have a lifelong urge to investigate foreign objects. Species who are food specialists, who survive by specializing in one food item for which there is little competition, are typically far more neophobic than species who are generalists and have evolved to eat many different things.1 For example, a lettuce specialist lives in my garden. He is Kalle Blomkvist the tortoise, whom we have had for years. Confront him with an object that is foreign to him and he will retract his head and feet, and he will not move an inch before he is sure that nothing unexpected will happen. After this he withdraws in a nice and reserved manner and at a pace worthy of a tortoise: “Investigate that? Never!” If you are a koala or a panda, you basically just have to care about whether or not there are eucalyptus leaves or bamboo shoots in your surroundings. But if you, like humans, are a food opportunist who is basically omnivorous, then 15

16 { The Aesthetic Animal

it pays to be investigative and curious about “that thing over there that I do not know what is.” Maybe it is edible. The members of a species who expand their food repertoire have an advantage in terms of survival compared to those who do not. And then you investigate and crack the nut, and then the oyster, the clam, the crayfish, or the lobster even though these unfamiliar objects do not immediately seem edible, because that is what neophilic opportunists do. The way in which a species acquires food is crucial to its behavioral repertoire and general living conditions. Though our closest relatives among the primates are first and foremost herbivores that supplement their diet with animal protein in the form of eggs and insects, humans are first and foremost omnivorous with a passion for meat. And while herbivores are forced to use the majority of their waking hours on getting food, carnivores make a concentrated effort in hunting and then have time to spare for other purposes. We acquired even more spare time at the point that we learned to cook the food over fire, and we apparently did so as soon as 1.9 billion years ago, where the first chef appears to have been found among the ancestors of the human lineage which we call Homo erectus.2 While our other ape and monkey relatives must use up to 50% of the day just on eating and digesting, humans only use 5% of the day for this because we are capable of cooking our food. But there is more. With the ability to cook food comes the controlled use of fire and with fire a whole new world is opened as hours are now added to the day. Whereas the day is full of duties and tasks, the night and the dark are spare time, and with the light from fire this time can now be utilized. And all these conditions—along with the time we carnivores save on acquiring food—free several hours that the representatives of the human lineage can now use for other things such as hanging out, socializing, playing, telling stories about who “we” are, and above all creating art, culture, crafts, technology, and decoration. Time that our herbivorous and in-the-dark relatives simply do not have. At the same time, we are a species that makes the most of our calorie intake and spare time. While other carnivorous species such as the big cats sleep for up to 16 hours a day after a successful hunt, we convert our calorie intake to stimulation-seeking behavior and new adventures into our environment and the things that surround us. The human nervous system is made for a high activity level, and we are busy stimulation-seeking creatures while the cats are lazy, vegetating creatures. All species have an Optimal Stimulation Level (OSL) at which they thrive.3 At this level there is an optimal and pleasant balance between novelty and familiarity and between change and stability. Below the optimal stimulation level animals such as humans exhibit stimulation-seeking and explorative behavior, and with monkeys, apes, and humans we can talk of boredom and restlessness. It is simply uncomfortable to be understimulated.

An Animal in Search of Stimulation } 17

If, on the other hand, the stimulation level is above optimal, the world becomes too varied and confusing. We become stressed and anxious and commence stimulation-reducing behavior:  We withdraw, attempt to leave, or freeze into a kind of behavioral paralysis, which is sometimes followed by an unconscious, sense-blocking black-out as a way of riding out the storm (see Figure 1.1). In some species, like tortoises, snakes, and reptiles in general, the OSL is low. In others, as in most hoofed animals and cats, it is small to moderate, and in a few species, such as most types of corvids and parrots, dolphins, apes, and humans, the optimal stimulation level is high or even extremely high. No other mammal is as investigative and wandering as humans are. We cross boundaries and explore new territory even when we have plenty of resources. The Neanderthals lived for thousands of years without spreading out very far, while we have spread throughout the entire globe and found our way to the farthest corners of the planet in just 50,000 years. Humans are unique, not least in the fact that we still seek stimulation and activity even when we relax and all our basic needs are satisfied. In a study from 2014 by Wilson and colleagues, 83% of test subjects reported that they never spend time sitting down with their own thoughts doing nothing. When the researchers later instructed a group of test subjects to do just this in a series of tests where they just had to sit with their own thoughts for six to fifteen minutes in an empty room without phones and internet access and without sleeping or pacing, they found that the test subjects found even this brief period of inactivity very uncomfortable. If they were given the option of reading a book, listening to music, or surfing the web, they would choose that option above inactivity and then describe the time as pleasant.

Optimal stimulation level (OSL) OSL Pleasant Organized behaviour

rising interest

collapse

sleep

0 Low FIGURE 1.1.

anxiety panic

boredom

Unpleasant Disorganized behaviour

stress

The Optimal Stimulation Level (OSL).

5

10 High stimulation

18 { The Aesthetic Animal

If they were given the option of administering uncomfortable electric jolts to themselves instead of just sitting there passively for the fifteen minutes of test time, as much as 67% of men and 25% of women paradoxically choose this option. They would rather do something unpleasant than to simply be passive and unoccupied. They choose painful stimuli over no stimuli at all. Only extremely stimulation-seeking creatures react this way, and it is this restless energy that fuels all the aesthetic activities with which we fill the free hours of a day: I am full, but with the bones of the meat that I have just eaten I can, with a scratch here and a cut there and a bit of grinding and drilling, create a statue, a talisman, or an amulet, which I can hang about my neck and which will, most importantly, keep me occupied while making it. The neophilia, the need for stimulation, and the free hours make this behavior both possible and meaningful, and so do other things regarding our ecological and existential conditions.

Festivity, Delight, and Surplus Energy For an herbivore the day is a long series of small homogenous, monotonous, and repetitive food consumptions. For a carnivore and a hunter this monotonous chain of actions is replaced by moments of strong concentration and excitement, by great effort and intense activity, and by huge disappointment or relief as the hunt fails or succeeds. This is an entirely different way of living in the world. Furthermore, for a primate and a member of the human species with a very high OSL the moment of triumph—where there is food enough for everyone and everyone is safe—becomes a party where the surplus resources and the relief trigger various activities characterized by surplus energy, such as playing, dancing, singing, making music, decorating the body and hair, and presenting dramatic re-enactments or oral retellings of the hunt and the killing. And thus begins the art of song, music, dance, poetry, drama, story, and painting:  as activities of surplus energy in an active, playful and stimulation-seeking animal that converts its calorie intake to new activities and festivities. The aesthetic impulse is not rooted in play. It is, like play, rooted in our need for stimuli. And play and art are both pleasurable ways of achieving stimulation. This is one of the main theories of why and when humans create art. The zoologist Desmond Morris4 is one of the advocates of this theory, the philosopher Nietzsche another. In his Will to Power, Nietzsche vividly describes how a state of “animal well-being” is behind the aesthetic impulse. It is a state of “intoxication, euphoria, youthfulness, festal joys and spring” that makes the forces of life find artistic expression.5 The theory of festivity, surplus energy, free time, and animal well-being in an active and stimulation-seeking animal is a good theory for understanding

An Animal in Search of Stimulation } 19

the birth of art. It makes immediate sense. We can picture it and understand the dynamics from within when we search ourselves, and it is also supported scientifically by both anthropological studies and psychological experiments such as the experiment carried out by Wilson and colleagues.6 But it is not the only theory out there.

Anxiety, Need, and Existential Uncertainty In a different theory there is, paradoxically, focus on the more unpleasant emotions. Here, the fact that the primary context of art in traditional tribal societies is always cult and religious ceremonies is emphasized. Art can thus not be separated from our magical and religious ceremonies, which we resort to exactly in situations of uncertainty and moments of anxiety and distress in an attempt to regain control. Consequently, we create art to alleviate the existential anxiety and tension that all humans sometimes experience in relation to the uncertainty of life. We come together in religious ceremonies, where the different forms of art simultaneously come together (including song, music, dance, body ornamentation, drama, storytelling), to inspire a sense of control and a feeling of community within the members of the tribe.7 It is very simple. When we sing, dance, and drum together we feel calmer and we experience the strength of community. We are in this together. And even though the rain dance or the other magical actions we resort to in order to ensure hunting success or atone for the transgressions of the tribe are all useless in the eyes of reason, each and every one of them is a psychologically meaningful strategy that gives the members of the tribe a sense of control. We can do something. We are not just passive pieces in the puzzle of grand forces, and this mental boost carries survival value. Furthermore, as mentioned previously, these collective ceremonies establish a sense of connection, cooperation, and emotional intimacy between the individual members of the tribe, which improves their odds in the battle for existence. The American scholar, Ellen Dissanayake, who is affiliated with University of Washington, is one of the driving forces behind this theory. Dissanayake argues that the main forms of ceremonial art—music, song, and dance—are essentially soothing for us because these rhythmic, repetitive, and dynamically varied vocal and movement patterns are ritualized repetitions of the sounds and movements that we use for comforting and soothing our children during child care. Infants who cry and are restless do not just produce stress and interruptions. They are also potentially dangerous for the other members of the tribe, as their cries can attract the attention of predators and enemies. Consequently, it was necessary to develop soothing mechanisms to deal with this issue. And this is where song—the calming notes of the mother’s modulated voice, the cooing

20 { The Aesthetic Animal

and sighing of infant-directed vocalizations, the repetition and the rhythmic rocking back and forth—comes in as one of the methods that have proven effective. Perhaps because these sounds and movements assure the infant that the parent actually is attentive to it, as the Harvard psychologists Mehr & Krasnow have suggested8. This theory also has a point. Art and cult are without a doubt connected in the original societies of man, and cult is something that we practice in order to achieve control and to calm the anxiety and unease that, for humans, inevitably comes with existence. But I have one reservation. Do humans primarily express themselves aesthetically through collective, cult, and ceremonial contexts? Present tribes and modern humans adorn their houses, weapons, tools, and kitchenware. They decorate themselves with colors, feathers, rings, jewelry, piercings, tattoos, and scars and thus fill the otherwise trivial everyday life with aesthetic content. And these aesthetics are likely to be art in the form of pastime, surplus energy, and delight rather than for comfort and as a sign of a shortage of energy. And what about prehistoric art? Is this form of art first and foremost religious and ceremonial? We will look into these questions in the following chapter. However, I would like to make it clear that I do not see any reason to choose sides in this discussion between seemingly opposing views, because why should both explanations not be able to supplement each other? Yes, more than that even. Why should they not be compatible? As we know, we humans have an optimal stimulation level at which we thrive, and we can therefore both be understimulated and overstimulated in regards to this level, and both positions are strongly behavior motivated. When we are understimulated, the aesthetic behavior can be one of the ways in which we engage, amuse, and stimulate ourselves, because, unlike cats, we cannot just be inactive. Similarly, when we are overstimulated and unrestful, the artistic forms—for example, together in a collective ceremony—may be one of the methods by which we calm ourselves and lower the tension in the group, as well as individually, all for the purpose of bringing us closer to the optimal stimulation level. At this level we step into a strong pleasurable state of engagement, presence, or what the humanistic psychologists call flow. Flow is a mental state of fully focused motivation where you are completely present in the moment, and from this point of surplus energy, well-being and intimacy we can, of course, also be creative, artistic, and inventive.9 Thus, rather than choosing between the great theories of what awakens the aesthetic impulse, you should understand that this impulse is closely connected to the stimulation level of the organism, and can therefore be roused across the human excitement spectrum whether we are under, over, or optimally stimulated. (Figure. 1.2 illustrates this point of view.)

An Animal in Search of Stimulation } 21 Optimal stimulation level (OSL) art OSL Pleasant Organized behaviour

rising interest art

panic collapse

boredom Unpleasant Disorganized behaviour

sleep 0

Low FIGURE 1.2.

stress art anxiety

5

10 High stimulation

Art and the Optimal Stimulation Level.

But what can now trigger the aesthetic impulse on the individual level is one thing. Why we were equipped with such an impulse in the first place and what important functions this impulse performs is another. We will look at these questions in the following chapters, but first we must go back to our ancestors and have a closer look at the first art and the humans who created it. Who were they and what where they doing? Were they first and foremost creatures of cult making “religious art” to use for the magical ceremonies of the tribe? Or can you also find a more broad aesthetic impulse here that makes them decorate themselves, their everyday utilities, and their surroundings? And who were the creators of these works? Were they particularly gifted individuals, few in number, and uniquely specialized for these activities, or was art and decoration something most members of the tribe took part in?

2 }

The First Humans and the First Art

One day three million years ago one of our ancestors—a member of the species Australopithecus africanus—moved along the river bank in the southern part of Africa. At the water’s edge he found a curious object: a reddish brown stone, heavy at 260 grams, a jasper quartz made smooth by the forces of the water and in the shape of a face with a pair of staring eyes, a broad nose, mouth, and chin, and a forehead marked by a visible hairline. This stone fascinated our ancestor so much that he did not just pick it up, but carried it with him several kilometers into the land and to the cave where he resided. This is where it was found 3 million years later—together with his bones and the bones of his conspecifics—in the Makapansgat cave of South Africa. The Makapansgat stone is not art. It is a manuport (from Latin manus, hand and portare, to carry):  a naturally formed object that has been found, appreciated, collected, and moved from its original geological finding place to another location far from there by one of our ancestors. And when I mention it here it is because we, in this appreciative action, find one of the first signs of an aesthetic sense in our evolutionary lineage. A curious primate, at this point still more ape than man with a brain not much bigger than that of present-day chimpanzees, found an object with a special visual, somatosensory, and, let us call it, “symbolic power”: the stone has a face that looks like the finder’s face (Figure 2.1). And this object, which can neither be eaten nor used for other purposes, fascinated and enthralled our ancestor so much that he had to take it with him. In the Wonderwerk cave of South Africa, one of our more recent ancestors of the species Homo erectus left color pigment behind 800,000 years ago, which he seemingly used to decorate himself and maybe also some of his belongings and surroundings. In Java 450,000  years ago, the same species engraved abstract zig-zag patterns on clam shells,1 and around the same time another of our ancestors was making the world’s oldest figurine to date in Marocco, the so-called Tan Tan Venus. This 6 cm large and 10 gram heavy stone figurine is 23

24 { The Aesthetic Animal

FIGURE 2.1.

The Markapansgat pebble.

a manufactured object with chiselled-out and engraved lines, which make the stone’s already human shape appear even clearer. Furthermore, pigments of iron and manganese show that the figurine had also been painted red.2 Neanderthals also used color and made strings of pearls out of clam shells, and they engraved simple patterns on cave walls and buried their dead on a bed of up to 200 colors.3 So from the moment we can see traces of the first humanlike creatures in our evolutionary line (the hominids, as we call them), we can also see the first traces of the aesthetic impulse. With the emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens, these traces become truly pronounced (Figure 2.2). Prehistoric art spans the entire world. Decorated weapons and tools, as well as rock and cave art, have been found in Mexico, Peru, Patagonia, Africa, Arabia, India, China, Siberia, Japan, and Australia, and new findings constantly appear. More recently, in 2014 in Indonesia on the island of Sulawesi, rock paintings at least 40,000 years old picturing human hands and a piglike animal have been found.4 However, there can be no doubt that Europe is still unique when it comes to both the quantity and quality of preserved art. The first fossils of our species were found in 1868 beneath the Cro-Magnon rock in the Vezere Valley near the village of Les Eyzies de Tayac in the Dordogne province in the southwestern part of France. The area is a prehistoric treasure chest quite literally teeming with traces of our ancestors and their activities. Therefore, this is where we continue our investigation.

The First Humans and the First Art } 25 Prehistoric humans – A time line showing the humans mentioned in this chapter Homo sapiens sapiens

The modern humans 200,000 BC until today

Cro Magnon humans

Another word for the modern humans. The name originates from the first fossil-finding of our species in the Cro Magnon cave in Europe in 1868

Homo neanderthalensis

Neanderthals 250,000 to 40,000 BC

Homo erectus

The upright humans 1,9m to 70,000 BC

Australopithecus africanus

“Lucy” the monkey human 3,8 to 2m BC

Hominides Collective name for primates such as humans, great apes and our above-mentioned extinct relatives. Primates The mammal species that we and the monkeys belong to. The history of the primates began about 60m years ago when the first prosimians occur. FIGURE 2.2.

Timeline.

Cave Art and Prehistoric Humans The Vezere Valley is a beautiful place, and the area has everything humans need. The landscape is mountainous and hilly, but you will not find hard, sharp alps of impenetrable granite here. Instead, you will find soft, curved and penetrable limestone rocks, smoothed by water and glaciers and full of overhangs and caves ideal for protection, as well as life-giving springs. The landscape holds all the necessities of human life: water, shade, shelter, and hunting opportunities. It also has rich opportunities for exploration: a mountain overhang, a river that twists and turns, open grasslands with a few trees, and areas of dense forest. New enticing scenarios that stimulate and invite you to come closer constantly present themselves. For at least 350,000  years, representatives of the human evolutionary line have been living in the Vezere Valley. The Neanderthals arrived around 100,000  years ago, and our own ancestor, the Cro-Magnon human, settled

26 { The Aesthetic Animal

FIGURE 2.3.

Reconstructed Cro Magnon settlement (about 30,000 BC).

there around 45,000  years ago, and you cannot blame them. Seen through human eyes, the area truly is a great habitat. They did not settle in the caves but lived in the mouth of them or underneath the big overhangs, which they fitted with tent sides sown from skin to shelter them from the environment (Figure 2.3). They hunted, fished, and gathered, made weapons, tools, beautiful garments (Figure 2.4), jewelry, and figurines. And they got together for annual and semi-annual gatherings in groups of up to 300 people under the great overhangs at Le Grand Roc and Laugerie basse. Being the curious and stimulation-seeking creatures that they were, the also went exploring into the caves and pits they found in the mountains and hills. In some places they crawled several kilometers down into dark and impassable pits, and they painted and engraved some of these from top to bottom with geometric symbols, stylized vulvas, and powerful animal figures such as those found in the Lascaux, Rouffignac, and Font de Gaume caves. They painted horses, bison, mammoths, and rhinoceri, but only remarkably few and badly sketched humans and no landscapes with earth, sky, trees, or vegetation. These humans—themselves nomads—were interested first and foremost in mobile subjects. Static nature, with its mountains, rivers, and vegetation, is entirely absent. These types of images do not appear in art until much later, when humans became settled farmers. The first landscape images were created by humans who erected houses and enclosed themselves behind walls in towns. These people viewed nature as “the other” that lay outside the city walls. The

The First Humans and the First Art } 27

FIGURE 2.4.

Cro Magnon man attire (about 30,000 BC).

nomad was too in sync with the environment in which he walked, moved, and lived for it to be a captivating image for him.5 However, there were other subjects that captivated him, and these subjects are thought-provoking and mysterious.

The Meaning Behind the Images—Religious Spiritual Explanations When cave art was explored scientifically for the first time at the end of the 1800s, the Cro-Magnon humans were considered simple creatures without the ability to think abstract thoughts, and their art was considered to be random creations without any underlying meaning. Art pour l’art—or art for the sake of art, to put it briefly.

28 { The Aesthetic Animal

Then, in the beginning of the 1900s, anthropologists arrived, and with them the idea of art as an art magique—a magical art. They compared prehistoric art with the art and religious images produced by contemporary hunter-gatherers and concurrently began to view the cave paintings as an expression of hunting magic and totemism.6 The assumption is that the images were supposed to ensure the success of the hunt by way of magic by tempering the spirits of the animals or paying homage to totem animals that the tribe associated themselves with and considered themselves to be descended from. During another phase of this magical, spiritual approach, the images were perceived as mythograms:  close-set images and symbols of these humans’ religious conceptions, and the caves were considered religious centers of cult activity. The assumption that it was only simple hunting magic is concurrently abandoned because this assumption is undermined by the fact that the kitchen middens of these hunters did not match the images of the caves. Although these ice age hunters had rock ptarmigans and reindeer in their stomachs they seemed to primarily have horses and bison on their minds.7 Reindeer, especially, were pivotal for them. Reindeer constituted up to 90% of their prey, and they used everything from the animal. They ate the meat, made clothing and shoes from the skin and lamp oil from the fat. Apart from that they made jewelry, tools, weapons, and figurines out of the horns and bones. But they did not paint them. These everyday animals—their daily meat so to speak—fascinated them as little as the animals in our refrigerated counters fascinate us. It may seem puzzling, but in this respect they were probably not too different from us. Even though our refrigerated counters are full of pork and chicken, we do not fill our paintings with pigs and chickens. You are not likely to come across a painting of a pig in your grandmother’s living room. It is quite likely, however, that you will come across paintings of impressive, dangerous, or fast animals such as stags, horses, bulls, bears, and predators on the walls. Next, a structuralist approach was taken. Anthropologists registered which species were depicted, counted the number within each category, noted where in the room they appeared, and what other species they were linked or confronted with.8 The French anthropologist Leroi-Gourhan, especially, leads the way with a gender dualistic theory in which masculine and feminine energies are allegedly confronted with each other on the walls of the caves (Figure 2.5). According to him, the animals in these cave paintings are not prey but cosmic symbols of some fundamental dualistic opposites that these humans dealt with. The horses are thus not horses but symbols of masculinity, along with animals such as stags and ibex, and they are associated with so-called masculine geometric symbols such as straight lines, arrows, dots, and branch and feather-like symbols. Similarly, bison are not, according to Leroi-Gourhan, simply bison but are symbols of femininity, along with animals such as oxen and mammoths

The First Humans and the First Art } 29

FIGURE 2.5.

Leroi-Gourhan: Male and female sign and symbols.

and symbols such as stylized vulvas, triangles, ovals, and square and rectangular symbols. Leroi-Gourhan’s theory is, like all theories, a product of its time, and through the 1960s and 1970s gender themes and the battle between masculine and feminine principles were the focus of great minds. Today, this theory is largely rejected by everyone. Structuralists simply could not agree among themselves as to which species or symbols were feminine or masculine. What is worse, there were no convincing criteria or testing to put this disagreement to bed. However, researchers have not given up on the religious spiritual approach to these images, but the approach has since, in a third phase, attained a more shamanist touch. According to these theories, the images were painted by a Shaman, a sacred magician with a special connection to the spirit world. And the images were the result of the visions he received during his various states of trance, and thus these images came from a hallucinating mind. The brain behind this theory is the South African anthropologist David Lewis-Williams,9 who studied the art and shamanist rituals of the San people for over 50 years. The shaman of these bushmen regularly travels to the spirit world in a state of trance, and he later paints the visions he receives there in blood and colors on the rocks in the tribe’s surroundings. When the other members of the tribe then touch these images, they receive some of the power the images hold. Lewis-Williams argues that the prehistoric cave paintings were used in a similar shamanist way and that horses and bison were the central power objects

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of these humans. He also proposes that the abstract symbols that surround the images, and that make up the main body of prehistoric art (dots, zig zag patterns, straight lines, curves, crescents, ovals, rectangles, angles, points, spirals, net patterns, and snakes/wavy lines), further support the theory that we are dealing with a state of trance. We know that the visual system spontaneously produces visions that are independent of external stimulation under special circumstances such as sensory deprivation (and thus sensory understimulation), migraines, effects of psychedelic drugs, or during states of trance. These are the so-called entoptic phenomena, which are visions produced by internal circumstances in the brain somewhere between the retina and the cortex, and these entoptic visions look remarkably like the geometric symbols of cave paintings. From lab tests,10 as well as from anthropological studies, we also know that the state of trance shares certain universal stages that are the same throughout the world. It is noteworthy that, in the first stage of trance, the frequency of geometric symbols—like the aforementioned ones—is great. In the second stage, these basic shapes develop into more complex images. Curves can now be perceived as the hills of a landscape, for instance; waves as snakes or streams; and sharp angels like arrowheads and weapons. In the third stage, the hallucination unfolds completely. The different impressions combine and narratives and allegorically complex stories can now play out on the stage of the mind, often inspired by the metaphysics particular to the individual. Christians see angels or Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Natives see the Lord of Animals, the Mother of the Sea, or the totem animal of the tribe. A recurring image at this level is the close-set symbol, where different otherwise unrelated elements combine and form a new whole. Therianthropy, in which human and animal parts are joined to form a fantastic creature—such as a chimera, a centaur, or a mermaid—is a typical example of this phenomenon, and therianthropy has also been found in cave art. The so-called “sorcerer” of the Trois Frères cave in the Pyrenees, which is half bison, half human, is such a creature, and further into the cave there is an even more complex example of therianthropy. A creature with antlers, a face like an owl, limbs like a bear, a retrorse penis (as in cats), a pony tail, and with the lower body of a human stares down at you from the ceiling of the cave. In Germany there is the Lion Man of the Hohlenstein Stadel cave. More than 30,000 years old, this is an ivory statuette of a creature with the head of a lion and the body of a human, and there are many more (Figure 2.6). Are these creatures gods? Are they shamans performing cult rituals or hallucinated spirits from moments of trance? We do not know exactly, but the assumption that what we are dealing with here are creatures belonging to prehistoric mythology seems reasonable.

The First Humans and the First Art } 31

FIGURE 2.6.

The Lionman, Hohlenstein. Germany.

Secularly Naturalistic Explanations More recently, cave researchers are saying that probably not all of the images of prehistoric art can or should be interpreted in terms of symbolism and spiritualism. The American archaeologist R. D. Guthrie is one of the proponents behind this new way of viewing these matters.11 According to Guthrie, prehistoric humans are practical beings like us, busy acquiring the necessities of life and preoccupied with the world that surrounds them. Therefore, he views prehistoric art from a mainly secular, naturalist point of view as hunters’ sober, naturalistic representations of the fauna that surrounds and fascinates them and upon which their existence depends.

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The animals they choose to paint are depicted exhibiting natural behavioral patterns by humans who have payed close attention, down to the smallest detail, to what they are doing. They are depicted grazing, fighting, showing fear reactions or mating and courting behavior, and grooming each other. In similar detail, gender-specific differences are depicted in the way fur and horns are painted, in the way the animals are shown urinating, and in social behavioral patterns. They have even painted the warble flies found on the skins of the hoofed animals they hunted—and which they, like the Inuit people, probably ate, as they are rich and salty in taste. Among other down-to-earth images found were those of edible fish and birds. Furthermore, there is an abundance of what Guthrie calls “testosterone images”:  big dangerous animals such as horses, bison, aurochs, mammoths, rhinoceros, lions, and bears. These are animals that both deserve and demand respect and which are difficult and dangerous to track down and kill. But they are also animals that give prestige, status, and recognition if you bring them down, which enables young hunters to rise in the tribal hierarchy. Young men and boys dream of heroic deeds and they also often have the courage and recklessness it takes to handle these challenges. This testosterone-driven characteristic explains, according to Guthrie, these image topics and perhaps also another widespread group of images: the large number of stylized vulvas, erect penises, and voluptuous females (the so-called Venus figures) that are also present in prehistoric art. The most famous one of all these is the Venus of Willendorf (Figure 2.7). But there are countless others, and they come in carved stone, carved ivory, engraved or sculptured on cave walls and later burned as clay statues in an area that stretches from Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Central Europe and all the way to Caucasus and Siberia. If we include the Tan Tan Venus, it is an image that persists through hundreds of thousands of years. The Venus figures typically do not have feet, hands, and facial features and only the sexually interesting zones, such as breasts, buttocks, and vulva, are highly emphasized and enlarged. Within the religiously spiritual tradition, these Venuses have often been thought of as a kind of maternal or fertility goddess. Guthrie does not reject this, but he opens up the possibility that these figures also had a far more direct sexual meaning as stylized sex objects to the people who created them (Figure 2.8). Fertility cults and fertility goddesses did not become prevalent until we became settlers and farmers and started stocking up on food. At this point we needed children to help with the enormous amounts of labor that farming requires, and we needed help from fertility gods to secure growth and harvest. On average, women from cattle and farming cultures gave birth to more children and in shorter intervals (one child every other year) than women from nomadic hunter-gatherer cultures, who had to carry the children until they were

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FIGURE 2.7.

Venus from Willendorf (approx 28,000 BCE).

old enough to keep up and therefore only had an average of one child every four years.12 Hunter-gatherer societies wandered, and therefore many children were not necessarily an advantage, and if too many were born with too little time in between they were often killed. That the children who had already been born survived was more important than to have new children put further strain on the group, and thus there was no need for fertility goddesses in these societies. Sex, on the other hand, is a pleasurable and self-rewarding activity that we never get tired of performing and that young testosterone-rich men already spend a significant portion of their day fantasizing about, and therefore these voluptuous female figures with their accentuated female attributes more likely represent the sexual fascination and desire of these people first and other things second. When looking at Venus of Lespugue—another famous statuette carved from mammoth ivory around 25,000 years ago—we can see that the sexual and titillating aspects are highlighted even further with a piquant skirt or loincloth placed just below the buttocks of the figure so as to further draw attention to these. Interestingly, this form of enticement has survived through time and can

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FIGURE 2.8.

Venus from Lespugue.

still be seen today, for instance, when young Zulu girls advertise their gender and single status in much the same way. So is cave art spiritual or secular? Is it even possible to distinguish between spiritual and secular at this time? Once again I  see no reason for having to choose between these opposing views. Some images are probably spiritual or mythological, and others are not. Nevertheless, I  think the time has come to recognize the secular, naturalistic explanations to a much higher degree than have been done so far. In the following, I will explain why.

Who Were the Artists? As already mentioned, the caves in which we found cave art were not the caves in which our ancestors lived. Archaeological studies actually suggest that only a very small number of people ever visited these spaces. One estimate says that only one out of a thousand of these people ever saw the inside of these caves,13 and this strongly puts into question the theory that shamans have, for

The First Humans and the First Art } 35

generations, performed rituals in front of an audience of kinsmen there. The archaeological findings simply do not give evidence of that many people ever being there. Furthermore, many of the caves are small, narrow, and almost inaccessible and therefore do not have the space to hold many people. In the Rouffignac cave, the paintings and engravings are found 2.5 kilometers deep into the cave through a complex tunnel system. Here, in a space with only 60 centimeters from floor to ceiling, a group of 4–6 people, maybe fewer than that, have lain down on their backs and decorated the ceiling of the cave with 65 beautiful, naturalistic animal images:  Mammoths, horses, ibex, and bison. They would not have been able to step back to see the whole picture and enjoy their finished work, and obviously no one else have been able to do so, either. And yet the animals are painted with anatomical accuracy. Some are finger paintings made in wet clay with a single, uninterrupted motion, while others are painted or engraved into the soft limestone by using flint. It is simply not possible that group cult activity has taken place here in this claustrophobic place—2.5 kilometers deep into a mountain and with only 60 centimeters from floor to ceiling. Instead, it seems as if the process of creating the art itself, rather than the subsequent use or viewing of it, had been the main part of its purpose. The Grotte du Sorcier, or “the Sorcerer’s Cave,” where you will find one of the few human figures among some engraved animal images, has only a narrow 15-meter pit and less than a meter from floor to ceiling, and thus the possibilities of cult activity here are also limited. It is, however, a place where curious and reckless young boys might venture. And once they are there, they might as well scratch a couple of horses and a poorly sketched man with an enormous penis into the wall (Figure 2.9). Even the Lascaux cave, where you will find some of the most beautiful paintings of the prehistoric art, was seemingly visited by only relatively few people during the period around 17,00 to 20,000 years ago, when the entrance had not yet collapsed and access to the cave was open to anyone. And this is in spite of the fact that some of the most beautiful images were found right at the entrance. This does not mean that shamans cannot still have used these caves and produced some of these images during moments of trance and mystery, alone or along with other individuals. The therianthropic creatures and some of the abstract symbols could have been the result of a mind in trance, but the caves were not the cathedrals of that age, where the tribe would collectively practice rites, and many of the images pictured there are not necessarily of shaman or cult origin. The most exquisite works of cave art are artistic masterpieces, no less. The animals are depicted with full anatomical accuracy—lying down, running, grazing, fighting—and a mastery such as this can only be achieved through

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FIGURE 2.9.

Human figure, Grotte du Sorcier.

countless attempts and sketches. In brief, it would have taken an enormous amount of time and effort to reach this level of skill, and someone invested these resources even though much less would have done the job if the painter had only wanted to depict the shamanist idea or typical characteristics of the animal. An animal is identifiable and iconic long before it is depicted with anatomical precision. Yet some of these artists had perfected their mastery of the craft, for no apparent shamanist reason. However, a large number of paintings and engravings exist that show no artistic ability whatsoever. They are barely iconic or identifiable. They are simple sketches and lines made by untrained individuals or children and adolescents during play, pastime, or personal marking. These sketches can be compared to modern day graffiti found under bridges and gates. There is a bit of sex, some territorial symbols, some poor sketches of images, and some “Killroy was here.” The handprints and footprints that have been found in the caves also show that a significant number of those who spent time in the caves were children and adolescents (Figure 2.10). The so-called hand stencils, created by individuals who held their hand onto the face of the rock and sprayed paint over the back

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FIGURE 2.10.

Prehistoric hand stencils.

Source: sunsinger/Shutterstock.com

of their hand through their mouth and in this way left a negative print of the hand, are especially interesting. Handprints can indicate age as well as sex. The key to telling the age is the size of the hand, and the length in particular, and the key to telling the sex is the width of the palm, the thumb, and the fingertips. Guthrie, who has painstakingly measured and analyzed 201 handprints from 30 locations, has shown that most of these belong to young teenagers but that some also belong to infants, and that 20% of them are estimated to be the hands of children in their preteens. The vast majority of these handprints seem to belong to men and young boys (162 out of 201) and the remaining 39 are classified as either females or young males. This distribution of gender probably influenced the rather monotonous and testosterone-heavy choice of imagery (big dangerous animals, genitals, and voluptuous women) found in the caves. Of all the possible themes they could have chosen to work with, only an extremely limited number are actually depicted. Why is prehistoric art not full of images of flowers, chubby smiling babies, colorful fruits, and insects with beautifully elaborate patterns? Why are there no images of songbirds or rodents when their environment was teeming with them? Perhaps the reason is that the people who decorated the caves, walls, and weapons were primarily young men and hunters. Interestingly, the study of contemporary children’s drawings confirms this assumption. Throughout the world, boys prefer to draw more aggressive, violent, and active images and topics inspired by sports, war, and conflict, and

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they also prefer to paint fast machines and vehicles such as airplanes and cars. On the other hand, girls are responsible for 80% of all plant and flower images, and 68% of all human figures are produced by girls,14 and, apart from the Venus figurines, these types of images are either entirely absent or severely underrepresented. Studies of children’s drawings may also help to shed light on the large number of geometric symbols in the caves. A number of studies indicate that while small children primarily paint human figures, the frequency of this type of image drastically declines with age until it almost disappears entirely at the age of 14 or 15. The frequency of geometric symbols, on the other hand, rises with age, and at age 14 to 15 it is the most popular choice of design.15 Thus, if the majority of people in the caves were adolescents, the many geometric symbols may simply reflect this age distribution, rather than necessarily all indicate the hallucinations of shaman states of trance.

Aesthetics and Decoration Outside the Caves It is easy for modern humans to associate caves with mystery, magic, and supernatural creatures, and it is therefore also natural to regard the aesthetic creations that have taken place here as the result of cult activity. What many tend to forget is that these people decorated everything. Weapons, tools, themselves, the faces of rocks outside of where they lived, as well as the caves that were all around them, and which researchers have spent many years trying to understand. These activities are not necessarily different from each other. Cave art still exists today only because these paintings have been protected and preserved from sun, wind, and rain for up to 40,000  years—unlike the fully exposed decorations produced on the outside faces of the mountains. But the outdoor decorations have still been there. In a few places, such as at Abri de Cap Blanc just outside Les Eyzies, you can still see an impressive 15,000–year-old frieze with horse figures, of which the largest is more than 2 meters long, chiselled into the rock in distinct reliefs. In Portugal, you can also see a prehistoric horse engraved under an overhang. These humans also had music and created instruments in the form of drums, various other modes of percussion, and flutes. The flutes, which are at least 40,000 years old, are made of ivory and bird bones, and they have as many as five or six finger holes for modulating the notes.16 Furthermore, they seemingly spent a lot of time and effort decorating themselves and their possessions. They made necklaces, amulets, and bracelets from shells, carved ivory, and animal teeth, and they often also colored and engraved geometric symbols into these pieces of jewelry.

The First Humans and the First Art } 39

From 32,000-year-old grave findings, for example from Sungir in Russia, we have examples of dead people (a young boy and a young girl) being buried along with enormous pearl creations. The boy was wearing a grand total of 4,903 pearls in bracelets, necklaces, and embroideries in his clothing, and he also wore a belt made up of 250 artic fox teeth, corresponding to 63 animals killed. The girl wore 5,274 hand-carved pearls. If we assume that it took 40–45 minutes to carve, polish, and drill a hole in each pearl,17, then this girl was placed in her grave with jewelry that took roughly 3,500 man hours to create, or more than four months’ work if someone worked 24 hours per day. Apart from showing what an important part aesthetic activities played for these people, these findings also give us an indication that this society was already 32,000 years ago a socially stratified society where people differed in status, as it is unlikely that all young boys and girls wore such precious jewellery.18 But the artistry does not end here. Some of the most beautiful craftsmanship, in my opinion, is found in the engravings and carvings in bone and stone that characterize these people’s weapons, tools, and statuettes. Everyday tools such as spears, spear throwers, or the riddled bones (the so-called batons or point straighteners) that were presumably used to shape and straighten bones and pieces of wood, are beautifully adorned with geometric symbols and naturalistic images, which are inconsequential to the functionality of the object but not to its aesthetic or cultural appeal. Again we must ask: who were these artists? Were they shamans or a specialized caste of craftsmen? The findings suggest otherwise. More than 90% of the tools found are embellished. This tells us that these tribespeople probably made and decorated the things they needed themselves, and therefore that most of them became quite skilled craftsmen. This does not mean that they were all equally talented or that they did not trade and exchange particularly beautiful objects; it just means that the aesthetic sense and impulse for artistic behavior was common and widespread among these people, and that these decorating activities were one of the ways in which they, as stimulation-seeking beings, sought pastime and recreation in the free hours of the day. Furthermore, all these aesthetic exertions took place at a time in history where the primary needs—such as the need for food, comfortable body temperature, personal and material security (the so-called basic needs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; see Figure 2.11)—are barely adequately and permanently fulfilled. This is also evidence of the great extent to which the aesthetic impulse is a basic impulse in the human motivation system and not just an individually occurring self-actualization need, which is the type of need that occurs at the other end of the hierarchy of needs. The creators of prehistoric art were, to a great extent, regular people, not exceptionally gifted individuals specialized for these activities.

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SelfActualization Esteem Needs Social Needs Safety Needs Physiological Needs (1) Physiological needs-food, drinks, sleep, sex, warmth (2) Safety needs-security, stability, production (3) Social needs-belonging, love, friendship (4) Esteem needs-self-respect, recognition, status (5) Self-Actualization needs-fulfilment of personal potential, creativity FIGURE 2.11.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

In the caves, where we find the great as well as the not-so-great cave art, both a spiritual and a more secular life may have taken place. Some of the images could be inspired by mythology, religion, and shamans. Some are, to all appearances, teenage graffiti and the random scribbles of untrained individuals. Others are masterly naturalistic studies of the surrounding fauna created by people who have had a lot of practice. And the reason these people have gone into these caves is probably that the time-consuming creation of these artworks, which must have lasted for long periods, could thus take place undisturbed by the weather and therefore the artwork itself could also remain unaffected by the elements, unlike the art that was made on the outside faces of the mountain. When going into the caves today, coming from the present-day subtropical continental climate with summer temperatures between 30 and 40°C, they seem cold with their constant temperature of 12–14°C all-year round. But for hunters of the ice age, who lived in temperatures as low as minus 25–30°C or lower for parts of the year, a cave temperature of 0–10°C is a pleasant room temperature. In here, you could go and perform low-intensity activities, such as painting and engraving, without freezing to death, and practical reasons like this are probably why they went in there in the first place. The caves have the flat surfaces on which you can paint and engrave, the temperatures needed for these types of activity, and the physical conditions necessary for the preservation of these creations. Whether you then want to regard the predominant imagery as “testosterone heavy” or not is a matter of preference. But there is a clear preference for the depiction of magnificent, dangerous, powerful, and awe-inspiring animals, and there are a lot of voluptuous, naked women and stylized vulvas in these rooms.

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And judging by the hand markings discovered in the caves, there were more boys and young men than young women. Both sexes undoubtedly contributed to the aesthetic activity happening outside the caves: pearl and jewelry making; the dyeing of cloth, skins, and objects; bodypainting, and the decoration of tools and weapons. For instance, both sexes very likely created the tools, clothes, and jewelry that they used themselves. It is hard to understand why there are so few human figures in cave art. In France there are only around 15 known painted or engraved human figures, and they are all poorly executed compared to the animals depicted. Was there a ban or taboo on depicting the human body? Or did they simply not possess the pronounced egocentrism and individual self-awareness that characterize modern humans? Were the artists of that time more preoccupied with the world around them than with themselves and the world inside them? In terms of anatomy, physiology, and brains, they were human like us. Their brains did not have a neurological architecture different from the one we possess, but perhaps their mindset was different. To the modern human there is nothing more interesting than people and personality—one’s own, first and foremost. We are anthropocentric narcissists, engaged in a selfie-cult; but perhaps the prehistoric human awarded itself a different and more modest position in the universe. Maybe this astonishment that they did not paint more human figures than they did is a modern wonderment, which says more about us and our time than it does about theirs. In addition, maybe the distinctions spiritual/ secular or cultic/aesthetic also belong more to our epoch than to theirs. In the following chapter we will attempt to delve further into the evolutionary history and basic motivational dynamic of the aesthetic impulse. Are there traces of the aesthetic impulse in species other than our own? Do other species possess a sense of aesthetics, and do they make aesthetic choices?

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What a Sexy Tale! KEY STIMULI AND ATTRACTION: AESTHETICS IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

He has been decorating his showroom for days. He has built a complex construction out of branches and it is now close to 3 meters high. He has collected colorful feathers, berries, flowers, and moss, and he has used them to decorate the room. He has also found beautiful beetles and shells and arranged them like a glittering curtain in front of the construction. He carefully rearranges some of the elements like a critical interior designer trying to put the “icing on the cake.” But he is not an artist, or an architect, or a designer. He is a bird of the species family Ptilonorhynchidae, commonly known as bowerbirds. And yet he is seemingly busy completing a complex aesthetic project. Now he starts to dance with little hops, quick side moves, and fluttering feathers! What is going on? Every animal scans its surroundings and rates the impressions it receives on a broad, emotion-based desire/detest, attraction/aversion, and approach/ avoidance scale. Figuring in this spontaneous appreciation are clear aesthetic preferences that decide which species in the surrounding flora and fauna and which food items, colors, shapes, smells, sounds, environments, and landscapes it is attracted or repulsed by, as well as which partners within its own species it chooses to engage with, sexually, socially, and cooperatively. To aid in these central identifications, every species is, by nature, hardwired to be especially aware of certain signals and markers in its surroundings. In ethology, these are known as key stimuli after Nico Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz’s seminal studies on instincts. The key stimulus fits like a key to the lock of an inborn stimulus filter: the Innate Releasing Mechanism in the central nervous system, which releases instinct-like behavior in the form of Fixed Action Patterns when the right key stimulus is perceived. In that way the key stimulus becomes a kind of alpha stimulus, which automatically dominates other inputs in the animals hierarchy of attention. We now turn to this world of

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natural alertness, innate sensibilities, species-typical preferences, and aesthetic micro processes, for that is the only way to understand the curious behavior of the bowerbird.

Birds, Festivity, and Color There are other species than humans that seem to exhibit a sense of aesthetics and aesthetic preferences. In most of these species, this sense is centered around their attraction to the opposite sex and is thus related to their courtship and mating behavior. When the males in certain species of birds show the females their colorful plumage, there can be no doubt that, as Darwin had already noticed in The Descent of Man (1874), the females find them attractive. Furthermore, these findings led Darwin to develop the theory of sexual selection, which explains why very distinctive plumage, coloration, and behavioral patterns that appear both dysfunctional and incapacitating develop in one sex of a species (Figure 3.1). In his book On the Origin of Species from 1859, Darwin developed the theory of natural selection, which suggests that the members of a species

FIGURE 3.1.

Peacock—male and female.

Source: pr2is/Shutterstock.com

What a Sexy Tale! Key Stimuli and Attraction } 45

most fit to handle the challenges in the surrounding environment survive and reproduce so that their characteristics are passed on to the next generation. This process equips the winners of the battle for existence with a range of sensible, functional characteristics such as strength, speed, and camouflaging coloration—the ability to blend in with the environment in order to be as invisible from predators and prey as possible. Then he spotted the peacock and this strange creature literally made him feel sick, because how can something as dysfunctional and unnatural as the peacock develop through natural selection? It does not. If the peacock’s appearance had been shaped by natural selection, he would have looked like the females of this species when it comes to coloration and tail size. But if the females happen to have a fetish for bright colors and big tails with structural coloration that entices them to mate with males that happen to be more lavishly equipped in this area than other males, then it will be these genes and thus the characteristics of these males that will be passed on. And this opens the possibility for a cornucopia of colors and feathers in the forest. A tail so big that you cannot fly, flee, or blend in with the forest floor may be a severe handicap, but if that is what the females prefer, then the male needs only survive long enough to reach sexual maturity in order for him to use this handicap as a reproductive advantage. And peahens clearly do prefer males with big tails and many colorful markings. Cut his feathers and remove about twenty of the eye-like markings, as Petrie and Halliday did in an interesting but slightly cruel experiment,1 and his mating rate will drastically decline. Thus, through sexual selection and thereby through the aesthetic preferences of the females, it becomes possible for the individuals of a species to develop such seemingly odd characteristics. According to the main flow of ideas in evolutionary biology, these ornaments provide honest signals about the genetic quality and all-around condition of the bearer: health, vigor, survival ability, and so forth. In a recent book, The Evolution of Beauty, the ornithologist Richard Prum questions this view. To Prum evolution can sometimes be decadent, so to speak, in its selection of ornaments with no other value than their subjective pleasantness. It may be that the trait, sexually selected, originally referred to some honest adaptive qualities. But later it sometimes becomes a source of attraction in its own right, in a self-reinforcing, “runaway process,” that might end up compromising the bearer’s ability to survive. And it takes something of a peacock to survive with such a handicap, dressed to impress on the forest floor and about as discreet as a fire engine on a suburban street. Where there is sexual selection there are festivities, colors, nonsense, and exaggeration, and the world of birds is full of these kinds of aesthetic excess. Some of the world’s most incredible feather and color patterns are found among the different species of birds of paradise, which live in the Maluku Islands, New Guinea, and northeastern Australia.

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It is unclear why these spectacular patterns and colors became the key stimuli that trigger the female mating programming. But we can speculate. If these birds are already programmed to be particularly aware of berries and fruits of a particular color, for example, through the programs that control their search for food, the random occurrence of similar shapes and color patterns in the male plumage can be what sets him apart from the others in a positive way that makes him preferable. It will then be his characteristics, including his propensity for developing spectacular color patterns, that are selected for, passed on, and become more pronounced as sexual selection is carried on through generations and females choose the ancestors that are most clearly carrying this variation of the genes. At least this is how it worked for populations of guppies—the little tropical freshwater fish, popular among aquarists—residing in the mountain streams of Trinidad. Guppies here often feed on orange food items, and this preference for orange food is at the root of guppy females’ preference for more orange males. The females develop a gestalt attraction to orange, and orange becomes a key stimuli that spills over from their food preference into their mating preference, as the biologist Helen Rodd and her colleagues has shown.2 What goes for guppies may also go for birds of paradise, and this throws an interesting light into some of the psychological processes involved in sexual selection. Beauty is in the brain of the beholder, and neural circuity has evolved to respond to sexual beauty so that animals can find a good, strong, and healthy mate. The biologist Michael J.  Ryan has studied the micro processes of sexual selection in his recent book: A Taste for the Beautiful: The Evolution of Attraction. Here Ryan shows us how females are the biological puppeteers behind the male’s aesthetic and behavioral appearances. Usually the focus is on how the brain evolved to be as it is. Here the focus is how the (female) brain in many cases drives evolution. Ryan calls his theory “sensory exploitation.” Through examples and experiments from a lot of different taxa, Ryan shows us how features of the females’ brain that find certain colors, moves, sounds, and smells attractive often existed before those attractive characteristics evolved in the males. His original field of study is the song or mating calls of Tungara frogs from Panama. The females prefer deeper calls, which are associated with bigger frogs and better fertilization of the eggs. However, females did not evolve their preference for deeper calls because of the benefits of preferring larger males. Instead, when males evolved calls, they evolved frequencies that matched the preexisting tuning of the females’ ear. Ryan’s book is full of ingenious experiments to track the cause-effect relations, and the reader interested in the different factors and processes involved in sexual selection should take a closer look at this fascinating study. Species’ hidden preferences will nearly always be related to adaptive advantages. These preferences then sometimes have an influence on the perceptions of beauty that is incidental rather than the immediate consequences of selection and evolution.

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The aforementioned bowerbirds do much more than just display their colorful plumage. They impress the females with complex, colorful architectonic structures on the forest floor (Figure 3.2). They are a kind of dancing pavilions or showrooms in which the males can perform and put on a show with the sole purpose of seducing as many females as possible. Whereas the males of most bird species actively participate in the care of offspring (nesting, feeding, protecting), bowerbird males only contribute their semen and then leave the rest to the females. These species have developed extreme courtship rituals in order to attract the attention of the females for the purpose of mating. Some species, like the golden bowerbird, build constructions up to 3 meters in height out of branches and decorate them with colorful feathers, berries, and flowers. When the decorative objects fade and lose their appeal, they are replaced with new ones. The satin bowerbird even paints the inside of these constructions. It mixes berries and saliva or saliva and charcoal until it makes a kind of paint. It uses bark or leaves as paint brushes and will often repaint the walls in other colors. It is hard not to view this behavior as evidence of an aesthetic sense in these birds, and experiments do show that some species, like the great bowerbird, create their decorations based on a stimulation and contrast principle. They much prefer the colors that are most different from their own and from the colors that form the background for the construction, and they exhibit a strong

FIGURE 3.2.

Satin Bowerbird.

Source: BMJ/Shutterstock.com

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reluctance to use objects that are of a color similar to their own or the background on which they mean to build and perform.3 As in humans, the stimulation factor seems to be of vital importance to the aesthetic choices made, and as in humans, it seems that all is fair in love and war. The males steal decorative items from each other’s constructions and are not above destroying someone else’s work while they are out looking for more design features. And this tendency is quite understandable, because the number of decorative elements in a construction strongly correlates with the mating success of the male responsible for it, and when the biologist Borgia systematically stole the decorative elements from the constructions of a group of males, he found that they achieved considerably less mating success than a group of males with undisturbed constructions, which he was also monitoring.4 A beautifully built and well-kept showroom is a powerful calling card that gives females all the important information about the builder’s qualities. It can say, “I am talented, diligent, meticulous, resourceful, mature, experienced, and dominant. I can defend my nest from theft and steal from others, and I have survived long enough to become an expert in my field, therefore this unique construction is a fitness indicator you can count on.” And hard work pays off in the form of a mate. The males with the most beautiful constructions can mate with as many as ten females in one day and up to 33 during one mating season; while others do not mate at all.5 Other species, such as the Japanese crane, perform an intricate dance consisting of ritualized movements such as bows, jumps, and pirouettes, which are repeated, synchronized, and mirrored as part of their courtship ritual. And yet other species seduce the opposite sex with elaborate warbles and a repertoire of up to 10,000 songs to choose from. Canaries are true equilibrists and, similar to the other species mentioned, it is the best singers with the most varied sequences that stand the greatest chance with the females. And the effect is instant. If you record the singing of a successful male and manipulate and simplify it by removing some of the elements, the females listening to that recording will be less active in terms of nesting and laying eggs than females listening to a whole, complex “canary.” This correlation between nesting behavior and the complexity of the song is also present in other species. The Australian lyrebird male is another accomplished singer. Unlike the canary, this bird does not just create complex variations of the basic repertoire of the species. Rather, it realistically reproduces all the sounds it hears, from the warble of a bird to the sound of a chainsaw or a radio playing music, and it then combines these sound samples to make one continuous sound, similar to how a contemporary DJ arranges sequences and loops from other records and turns them into new songs. Moreover, it pays off to listen carefully and to choose the best singer. Song sparrow males with large repertoires have better body condition, less

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physiological stress, and a more robust immune system than their less virtuoso competitors.6 In The Descent of Man, Darwin sees a connection between human aesthetics and the courtship rituals and mating performances of the animal kingdom, and he finds striking similarities between these behaviors and the different artistic expressions of humans. The rhythmic and ritualized movement patterns of the courtship rituals could be the original source of our own dance behavior, and courtship vocalization could be the origin of our music, song, and poetic lyrics. Darwin suggests that the application of beautiful ornaments in different shapes and colors to an animal’s appearance or to physical constructions can likewise be the natural precursors to the urge for self-decoration and decoration of the surroundings found in our species, as well as for artistic creations such as paintings, sculptures, and architecture. Whether the aesthetic impulse and the artistic expression they give rise to can be reduced to sexually selected behavior is another matter, which we will return to in Chapter 5. But as we shall see in the following chapter, there can be no doubt that aesthetics and artistic expression also function as indicators of fitness, which can greatly improve an individual’s status, prestige, and success with the opposite sex among humans as well.

Primate Aesthetics Sexual competition for the favor of females does not just involve beautiful arguments and aesthetics in order to succeed. It also involves aggressive rivalry among individuals of the same sex. Muscles are flexed, power and courage are displayed, and so is the ability to threaten and dominate rivals to gain muchcoveted mating opportunities. This side of sexual selection has been very prevalent among mammals and primates. The members of our evolutionary line are not entirely without signaling via spectacular color and fur, but this is primarily used as means for dominance, which is to be expected from animals living in groups based on social hierarchy. Baboon and mandrill males are some of the most colorful members of the primate line with their bright blue, red, and purple colorations on face, chest, backside, and genitals. Furthermore, there is a clear correlation between brightness of color and social status, as well as between brightness of color and sexual activity, size of the male’s harem, and access to females willing to mate. These colorations only reach their full intensity in dominant males with high status, and it has been observed that the coloration fades after a defeat and the loss of alpha male status.7 In most primates (with the exception of humans), females also have visible ovulation and display a bright red and swollen backside and genital area when they are in heat, and this key stimulus has a powerfully arousing effect on the

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males. Apart from this, however, aesthetic effects within the primate line are few and far in between, which is quite conspicuous in many ways. Great apes are intelligent, tool-wielding, and cooperating creatures with which we share genes; in the case of chimpanzees, we share 98.6% of our genes. But when it comes to aesthetics, there are very few common features between us and them. They do not decorate themselves or their surroundings. They do not enhance and embellish—with leaves, flowers, or colorful materials—themselves or their tools. They do not display and shape the bones and skulls of the animals they kill as proof of their strength, skill, or sense of beauty. They are predominantly herbivores, without the tool of fire, and do not have time for these things, as humans do. Yet one would expect a few aesthetic creations, but there are hardly any (Figure 3.3). Gorillas, chimpanzees, and the specific kind of slender chimpanzee known as bonobos will sometimes clap their hands and play drums on roots, hollow

FIGURE 3.3.

Mandrill male.

Source: Curloso/Shutterstock.com

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tree trunks, and, in gorillas, their chests. This usually occurs during angry excitement as a display of dominance in front of other males to intimidate and scare conspecifics within the group or as territorial marking and warning to strangers. They do not drum because they find the rhythmic activity pleasurable or satisfying in itself, but because it can be used as a demonstration of power and as a signal of threat to others in a state of agitation. If we want to see something like aesthetic sense and pleasure in our closest relatives, then we need to go to the lab. We will not find it among great apes in the wild. In the 1960s, when Desmond Morris introduced the chimpanzees of London Zoo to creative tools in the form of pen, paper, and crayons, they were absorbed and engaged in producing lines and patterns—just like our children. The process was clearly pleasurable and took place on a volunteer basis without any form of reward. They often did not want to give back the tools, and if they were kept from continuing or completing the activity before they felt like they were done, they protested wildly and threw temper tantrums. Such a reaction—in response to a pointless activity such as producing lines or colors on paper—shows us that this process is at the very least pleasurable and that it, like other internally motivated activities, is its own reward. It is as if the chimpanzee brain, like our own, is programmed to become consumed with the process of creating images when the material possibilities for such an activity are present. They also seem to know when a work is complete, as they refuse to continue painting a picture they have already put down, if they are once again presented with it. They will happily continue painting on a new piece of paper, however. These experiments have later been repeated and corroborated by others.8 Experiments with capuchin monkeys similarly suggest that these monkeys also—of their own initiative and without any reward—start creating images and shaping objects if left with materials such as clay, crayons, and sticks, with which they can shape or paint.9 In Chapter 7 we will have a closer look at the differences between the brains of humans and chimpanzees, which explain why we humans are so much more engaged in aesthetic activities than our closest relatives. But for now, we will dig deeper into the world of key stimuli, innate sensibilities, and species-typical preferences on which our aesthetics is based. We will investigate which shapes, colors, and landscapes we are most drawn to. We will go deep into the micro processes of the aesthetic impulse and attempt to understand why some things captivate and fascinate us.

4 }

The Woman in Red and the Man with the Chrome-Plated Wheels AESTHETICS AND KEY STIMULI IN THE HUMAN WORLD

A sunset by the sea, Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor, a 1968 Aston Martin, Shakespeare’s plays, a heart-shaped face, and a meadow with flowers and shady trees are just some of the things we humans consider beautiful. But do they have anything in common? Not at first glance. But looking closer at the different phenomena, we find that each and every one of them creates a firework of sensory perceptions in our minds that is pleasurable and stimulating. And one of the keys to unlocking the truth about this auditory and visual stimulation lies in our innate sensibilities. Like other animals, we are disposed to react to certain key stimuli, which have been associated with an expectation of functionality, fitness, and increased well-being through evolution. The aesthetic sense—which allows us to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly and the wonderful from the unexceptional—is thus like the emotions of attraction and aversion, a factor that enhances our perception of what is essentially good for us, our survival, and our reproduction. Consequently, the aesthetic sense contributes to our general survival and reproductive capability or fitness as it is called within the field of evolutionary psychology. The fitness of an organism deals with how fit it is, meaning how biologically healthy, strong, and capable in terms of survival and reproduction it is in competition with others. A high level of fitness means that the organism is well-adapted and that it is doing well in the competition against conspecifics for resources and mating opportunities. The perception of beauty is also a strong internal indicator, and it pays to be guided by it. It is an expectation that this will benefit me; a promise of functionality, health, use, and well-being; and as a mechanism evolved to help us choose the right fitness-enhancing items in our surroundings. Or as Thornhill1 53

54 { The Aesthetic Animal

puts it: “Beauty experiences are unconsciously realized avenues to high fitness in human evolutionary history. Ugliness defines just the reverse.” Let us look into that. Moreover, let us begin with the beautiful face (Figure 4.1). They say there is no accounting for taste. However, when test subjects from thirteen countries and four ethnic groups were tasked with assessing 48 pictures of white as well as colored women’s faces from different cultures in an extensive study by Cunningham and colleagues, the results for what was deemed a beautiful face were surprisingly similar across the different sexes, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. The different groups all considered the same faces as being the most attractive.2 We have all seen the same Hollywood films, and one might think that it was this influence rather than innate species preferences that causes the similar beauty standards. But infants put in a similar situation also agree. Newborn babies who have only lived between 14 and 151 hours hold their gaze longer on attractive female faces when presented with an attractive and an unattractive face.3 As this group of new born babies, only a few hours old, surely have a very limited knowledge of Hollywood productions, the likely answer is that infants are born with a disposition for paying extra attention to certain visual features of the human face. Just as the infant is particularly disposed to seeking out a clear voice, as this is the most likely source of the nipples.

FIGURE 4.1. Beautiful faces—feminine and masculine. A feminine symmetric face with big eyes, high cheekbones, full lips and a small chin. And a masculine, testosterone-signaling face with pronounced eyebrows and a strong jaw/chin. Source: Yuri Shevtsov/Shutterstock.com Source: conrado/Shutterstock.com

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The reliable preference for attractive above unattractive follows the child through its development, and at the age of twelve months, children clearly prefer playing with an attractive doll above an unattractive one, as well as with an attractive stranger above the same stranger rendered unattractive by a mask.4 As we shall see later, a great number of other studies have shown that it is the areas connected to the brain’s reward system that are activated when we look at beautiful faces.5 To put it briefly, gazing at beautiful faces is rewarding in itself. Consequently, we are attracted to them, and this inner urge is nature’s sure-fire way of leading us toward what is, in terms of biology, good for us.

The Beautiful Face Obviously, there are cultural differences. Not many westerners consider African, South American, and Polynesian facial tattoos beautiful. But when it comes to the purely physiognomic facial features, people throughout the world agree that women with big eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, delicate narrow chins, and symmetrical heart shaped faces are beautiful. We also know that several of these features, such as full lips and facial symmetry, are signs of organismic health (the absence of parasites, mutations, and toxins) and a high level of estrogen in women, and from a reproductive standpoint, this information is highly relevant. Women generally value men’s looks less than men value women’s. But what women throughout the world value—apart from symmetry—are facial features that signal masculinity or testosterone such as prominent brow ridges and a square jaw. Furthermore, the attraction to these key stimuli increases significantly during ovulation.6 Men with more masculine facial features also tend to copulate more and have more girlfriends than less masculine men of the same age.7 Masculine features are also reliable indicators of a healthy immune system, as only strong and healthy men can release enough testosterone during puberty to make their features masculine. Additionally, masculinity is indicative of strength, dominance, and thus access to resources, which is of great importance to reproduction and subsequent parental care. Men with square jaws are also considered more dominating than others in eight cultures,8 and in a study of cadets at the West Point military academy in the United States of America, the cadets with the most masculine facial features ended up with the highest ranks in the military hierarchy in their subsequent careers.9 The beautiful face is a fitness indicator. A fitness indicator signals strength, energy, and good genes. High fitness means that the organism is well adapted and does well in competition with fellow species about resources and mating opportunities.

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The Beautiful Body Symmetry is also important in both sexes when it comes to body beauty. A preference for symmetry is favored across taxa in the animal world. For example the reindeer with the most symmetrical antlers fair better than the others in sexual competition, and female swallows mate with male swallows with large symmetrical tails more often than with others. Men with symmetrical body proportions have their sexual debut earlier than men with more asymmetrical bodies, and they have two to three times as many sexual partners. In addition to that, their partners identify them as better lovers, based on orgasm frequency.10 Other studies have shown that women even prefer the scent of symmetrical men, and, again, this is a strong indicator that symmetry is a key biological sign of health in an organism.11 Men also prefer symmetrical women, and symmetrical women have more sexual partners than their less symmetrical peers. Women with large, symmetrical breasts are more fertile than women with asymmetrical breasts. Furthermore, breast asymmetry is a significant negative sign that predicts a reduced capacity for breastfeeding and lactation flow, as well as reduced fertility.12 Symmetry is thus often a reliable indicator of mate quality. Nevertheless, good genes and superior mates do not have to be the only explanation for such a preference. The preference could also be the result of a more general perceptual or cognitive bias in the brain, which spills over (like the guppies’ preference for orange food and males), as Ryan’s theory of sensory exploitation showed us in the last chapter. One argument for this is that a preference for symmetry occurs in a variety of animals in domains having nothing to do with sex. Humans have preferences for symmetry in many areas, such as art, architecture, interior designs, flowers, parks, pets, and faces and bodies. And bees excel at learning symmetrical patterns over asymmetrical ones. Therefore, the preference for symmetry in sexual traits could have more to do with how the brain of the chooser works. However, symmetric individuals might be healthier, more fit and vigorous organisms and hence deliver genetic benefits to the choosers by endowing them with healthier offspring. Whatever the answer, these preferences still drive the evolution of symmetrical traits, because it is part of the chooser’s aesthetic programming. Additionally, women prefer tall men with broad shoulders and narrow hips (the so-called inverted triangle). These are features that are also highly affected by testosterone levels, and throughout the world broad shoulders and a tall body are associated with status, and it is also usually the taller of the two presidential candidates who wins at US elections13. Furthermore, men with an inverted triangle shape have turned out to be healthier and more fertile and less prone to getting prostate and testicular cancer than men of the same age with narrower shoulders and fuller hips.

Woman in Red, Man with Chrome-Plated Wheels } 57

The ideal woman, on the other hand, has an hourglass shape and a waistto-hip ratio of 0.7, where the circumference of the waist is 70% of that of the hips (Figure 4.2). The more a woman deviates from this shape, the less attractive they appear to the men of the world.14 To compare, the ideal ratio for men is 0.9. We perceive women with curves and men with an inverted triangle shape as sexually attractive, and there are sound biological reasons for why we are drawn to these key stimuli. Women with a waist-to-hip ratio around 0.7 have a 30% greater chance of getting pregnant than women who have an apple shape or no clearly defined waist. They have the optimal amount of estrogen in their bodies and are more resilient toward diseases such as diabetes, heart problems, and ovarian cancer. Women with a more masculine waist-to-hip ratio of 0.8 or above have a greater risk of diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, and gallbladder problems.15

FIGURE 4.2. Waist-to-hip ratios (WHR). The ideal waist-to-hip ratio is 0.7, i.e. the waist is 70% of the size of the hips.

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How fleshy men like their women varies in different cultures, and there is a tendency for men in rich countries to prefer quite slim women, while men in poor countries tend to prefer a higher percentage of fat. These variations also make sense. For when food in a culture is scarce, a slightly higher percentage of fat indicates that this woman has the energy and resources necessary for bearing children. But fat or thin—men prefer curves and shape, as well as a clearly defined waistline. Even the prehistoric Venus figurines described in Chapter 2 have a clearly defined hip-to-waist ratio of around 0.65, according to measurements taken.16 Socially there are also many advantages to having beautiful features. Beautiful children are punished less—for the same misdeed—than less attractive children, and beautiful students receive better grades, on average. When it comes to finding a candidate for a vacant position, beautiful applicants are preferred, and very attractive individuals are treated better and receive milder sentences in matters of the law than less attractive transgressors.17 We are likewise inclined to perceive attractive individuals as more intelligent, honest, sensitive, and pleasant as well as having better leadership abilities than less attractive people.18 In other words, it is not only natural for us to equate beautiful and healthy, but also beautiful and good. This seems to happen automatically—behind our backs, so to speak—if we do not think about it. And while the first equation may be sensible and guide us safely in the direction of choosing a good biological partner, the other equation is rather problematic. Beautiful people are not necessarily better or more moral people, and you cannot simply mix aesthetic and ethical judgements as though they rested on the same foundation, or as though what is biologically good and what is morally good are the same.

Color as Key Stimuli Humans are very visual animals, and our brain’s ability to get information from visual input far surpasses the capacity of the strongest visual computer systems developed to date. The areas of the brain that are devoted to the processing of visual stimulation make up about a third of the brain’s total size, so it is safe to say that our vision is our most dominant sense.19 Humans are also very fond of colors. We are attracted to and surround ourselves with an abundance of colors, and we are just now beginning to understand how these colors affect us. What we experience as color is really electromagnetic waves within a particular spectrum. Body heat, ultraviolet and radioactive radiation, brain waves, and TV and radio waves are all part of the same electromagnetic spectrum, which is measured in meters. Radio waves are hundreds of meters long; while visible light waves are so small that they need to be measured in nanometers, which

Woman in Red, Man with Chrome-Plated Wheels } 59

are only one millionth of a millimeter, so we are now dealing with things on a very small scale. Humans can only see a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum from around 400 nanometers, which we experience as a deep blue color, to 700 nanometers, which we experience as a deep red. Within this modest spectrum, we are capable of distinguishing between almost ten million nuances of color. Humans are primarily sensitive to the red, green, and blue areas of this spectrum; while bees, for instance, are sensitive to the yellow, blue, and ultraviolet areas. The latter is invisible to humans. On the other hand, bees cannot see red as we know it. Dogs and cats seem to experience blue and yellow best; while they have a hard time distinguishing between red and green, and thus every species has its own color world, depending on which wavelength it has the requisite receptors for. Color vision, the way humans experiences it, is uncommon in mammals, because our distant mammalian ancestors were nocturnal, as are many mammals today. Most mammals are thus dichromate. They lack the long-wavelength cones, which humans, as trichromatic beings have, and cannot perceive the differences between red and green. The wavelengths we can receive appear to have a big influence on our lives:  our health, our sexual preferences, consumption habits, psychological moods, as well as on our general quality of life.20 The color red bears clear signal qualities for a large number of species. It triggers aggression and territorial behavior in sticklebacks and robins; dominance and submission in baboons, mandrills, and macaques; and sexual attraction and mating desire in chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and gibbons. In humans, the color red induces an increased heartbeat, elevated blood pressure, and a momentary increase in the organismic arousal and thus also increases the level of activity and excitement (in contrast to colors like blue and green, which lower the level of arousal), and this affects our relation to others. A study with horses yielded similar results. A stable of racehorses were divided into two sections. One stable was painted blue and the other was painted red. In the blue area, the horses quickly calmed down after a race; while they remained aroused and unrestful for longer in the red area. Furthermore, they were hardly any flies in the blue area, but many in the red area.21 If you purchase a red car, prepare yourself for quicker and more agitated reactions from other drivers when you make a mistake or get in their way in traffic than if you made the same mistakes in a green, blue, black, or white car. The red color of your car will have the same effect as waving a red flag at a bull.22 And if you are a woman, know that men find you more beautiful and sexually attractive when you wear a red dress or top than if you are wearing blue, grey, or green colors. Among other things, this can mean that they will sit closer to you when seeking contact and that they ask more intimate and flirtatious questions in the subsequent conversation.23 Men are not consciously aware of

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this, and whether you are wearing red or not will not affect their perception of your intelligence, likeability, or kindness. However, this effect only works on men and not on women who see other women wearing red. As with the other great apes, the color red acts as an aphrodisiac and is associated with sex and romance (Figure 4.3), and throughout the world—from the tribal societies of Africa and South America to contemporary western industrial societies—young women paint their bodies and their faces with the color red to symbolize fertility and the transition from child to sexually mature woman. Human females may not have visible ovulation like the other great apes, but during sexual arousal, the skin on the chest, face, and neck flushes, and the labia minora swell and become reddish. Women’s use of makeup such as blusher, lipstick, and nail varnish mimic these erotic colorations, and men are programmed to respond to this biological code language. Red makeup, red lingerie, red light district, and red monkey backside. A pattern appears to be forming. Throughout the world, red is also cognitively associated with heat (sun and fire) and blue is associated with something cool and fresh (water and ice). People generally feel warmer in red and orange rooms and cooler in blue and green rooms, and if you turn up the heat in a room, people will start to prefer blue colors while the opposite happens when the temperature drops. As already mentioned, the color red excites and increases the momentary arousal level, but the effect is only brief, as we quickly habituate and grow accustomed to most sensory stimuli, and there is therefore nothing that suggests that working in a

FIGURE 4.3.

Celebes Macagues—male and female.

Source: Gertan/Shutterstock.com

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room with a permanently red wall makes people more active, productive, or erotically aroused.24 On the other hand, the color combination of a room can seemingly completely change the pulse and blood pressure of a group of individuals. In the regular classroom of a group of children, the colors were changed from orange and white to royal blue and grey, and the blood pressure of the children dropped by an average of 17%. This is an impressive drop. Especially considering the fact that these children were blind! A change in color is a change in the electromagnetic waves that hit us, and this change affects blind children as well, which reveals that we must possess other sensory receptors for detecting the electromagnetic radiation in our surroundings than just visual receptors. Studies have indicated that it is possible for blind people as well as for sighted people to feel different colors. Red feels warm and “sticky,” blue feels cool, and yellow feels smooth. This sensitivity indicates that the different wavelengths are also detected in the cutaneous receptors, or skin receptors.25 The field of color psychology is still in its infancy. Although some effects, like the red effect on attractiveness and sexual receptivity, are well documented, not all studies find this effect (Peperkoorn et al., 2016), but the field is buzzing with activity, and we will soon be able to present more precise data for how the colors of the world affect us psychologically.

Shapes, Materials, and Textures Certain shapes and geometric patterns also appear to attract us more than others, and this seemingly innate aesthetics occurs, among other reasons, because the perceptual system is neurologically programmed to want completeness, order, structure, symmetry, and thus simplicity in the impressions we receive. When test subjects (children as well as adults) are presented with a brief flash of incomplete geometric shapes, such as a square with a missing corner or an incomplete circle, they will afterward claim that they saw a whole square and a full circle, as these shapes are simpler and more visually and satisfyingly complete than the ones they were shown.26 Throughout the world, we also use geometric shapes (rectangles, triangles, rhombuses, and circles) in our art and decoration, even though none of these shapes can truly be observed by the human eye in the surrounding nature. However, they can be abstracted or “condensed,” which is what happens when a system tuned toward simplicity, completeness, and order cuts through and concentrates the impressions it receives. For early Gestalt psychologists, like Koffka, Köhler, and Wertheimer, the law of simplicity, and with it the need for structure, order, and symmetry, was the state toward which all of our organizing efforts strived. There is an aesthetic

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pleasure connected to the establishment of structure, order, and simplicity.27 The mind becomes at ease and experiences harmony and beauty. This is not wrong. But it is certainly a truth with modifications. Being curious, neophile, and stimulation-seeking beings, we are equally aroused by new, unfamiliar, and complex stimuli and patterns. No sooner has order become the norm and established pattern for decoration, rhythm, and music than the deviation from this norm (e.g., the sudden use of afterbeats in music) creates new attention, fascination, and aesthetic pleasure. Thus, rather than just order, structure, and simplicity, it is the interplay between variation/order and between stimulation/structure within a given pattern that are the basic ingredients in aesthetic pleasure. When variation and complexity increases, so does the stimulation level and this—as we saw in Chapter 1—is pleasurable until a certain point. When order and structure is increased, the stimulation level is lowered, and if this is what you need then this will also be pleasurable. When looking at materials and textures, it becomes clear that humans feel a strong attraction to shiny and glistening shapes and surfaces. Anything that has a BLING effect and that sparkles, glitters, twinkles, and shines has our full attention. This is why gold, silver, mother of pearl, diamonds, crystals, gems, highly finished cars and chrome-plated wheels are so precious all over the world. And not just among gangster rappers from the ghetto. Today, these items are so highly valuable that they can be transformed into all kinds of need fulfilment and can function as status markers and door openers for those who understand the art of flashing them in the right way. But originally these shiny, sparkling objects, which are not even edible, and which other animals just pass by, have simply seduced us with their perceived beauty because they stood out and aroused the aesthetics of our senses. There must be a reason for this. What else shines and glitters like silver, gold, and diamonds? Water does and so does dew and juicy fruits and perhaps this is where we need to look when attempting to understand our fascination with shiny things. We are hardwired to look for and feel attracted to particularly important stimuli. Habitats with water have been vitally important during our evolution and we prefer landscapes with water, and this attention to shiny, glittering stimuli, indicating clear, pure water, can very well be the origin of our fascination with all the glittering objects of the bling world. Infants also put shiny blinking objects in their mouths and suck on them far more often than they put matte things in their mouths, and this is further proof of this association.28 Furthermore, we show particular vigilance to sharp, pointed, jagged, and pricking shapes and these have also been important stimuli during our evolution, as sharp and pointed shapes can be found on the teeth and claws of predators and conspecifics, on weapons such as knives, arrows, and spears, and on sharp rocks and thorns that you could accidentally step on. To this day, we exhibit reflexes that make our pupils dilate (a fear response) when we are presented with sharp rather than round shapes in experimental

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FIGURE 4.4.

Zulu bracelets.

Source: Dendenal/Shutterstock.com

settings. We also perceive sharp shapes as significantly more dangerous than round shapes in questionnaires.29 Analyses of the shapes in cartoons and computer games also show that characters of a dangerous high status are more often depicted as having sharp, pointed shapes in these universes than peaceful low-status characters. Both folk art and professional art, as well as the world of design, have of course, used this alertness, and “zig zag” patterns are a vital part of ritual masks, shields, and artefacts found in primitive tribal societies, as well as in modern textile design, which wish to capture our attention (Figure 4.4).

The Beautiful Landscape, the Good Habitat Normally, we do not think of the art world as a democratic world where people are asked what kind of pictures they want. The art world is the playground of big egos where the creative genius brings their unique visions to life without being disturbed by the common crowd and without consideration for the recipient. At least according to one of the most popular art myths in the western world. But what if we take a market analyst approach and ask regular people all over the world what pictures they would like to have hanging on their walls in big cross-cultural studies? What will their answer be?

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We do actually know the answer to this, because Russian dissident artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid did just that in The People’s Choice Project when they moved to the United States in the beginning of the 1990s. The artists let public opinion agencies in ten countries (the United States, Russia, Ukraine, France, Kenya, Turkey, China, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark) ask the people of the countries what imagery and colors they wanted in a picture that they would buy and hang on their wall. Whether from Kenya or from Iceland, the answers were surprisingly similar. The favorite color was predominantly blue. Green came in at a clear second. What people wanted to see were naturalistic landscapes with water, trees, and open plains with animals and a few humans (preferably women, children, and historical figures) in relaxed poses. As a response of this request, such a painting was painted, and it consisted of 44% blue landscape with water, clouds, distant hills, and trees in the foreground; and some children and adults, plus one historical figure, George Washington, relaxing among animals such as deer and hippopotamus. All painted in a conventional realistic 19th-century style. This painting is probably more clever provocation than great art, but it is nevertheless an immensely interesting painting, from the point of view of evolutionary psychology. This is apparently how people imagine the good landscape. This motif also bears clear resemblance to the original savanna landscape of eastern Africa where the cradle of man was, and where our ancestors, the hominids, broke from the line of chimpanzees and lived for millions of years.

The Savanna Hypothesis From a human perspective, certain landscapes are definitely better habitats than others if the goal is survival and reproduction. It needs to have the vital material resources such as water, food, shelter, and protection—including the possibility to attain safety—and it needs to have an open view so that it is possible to spot both predators and prey in time. Trees with low-hanging branches and wide crowns are ideal for finding shade and to climb up fast. Plains with flowers are also ideal, as they indicate fertile soil and the presence of plenty of water, as well as the possible presence of prey species. The typical savanna landscape provides these preconditions in several ways, and when Balling and Falk30 showed pictures of five biotopes (tropical rainforest, African savanna, deciduous forest, coniferous forest, and desert) to eight-year-old children, the children preferred the savanna landscape regardless of whether they grew up in areas with deciduous and coniferous forests or not. In different studies, Orians and Heerwagen31 show that people prefer pictures of savanna acacias with wide crowns and many layers that give shade and protection, regardless of what kind of flora existed in the environment in which

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they grew up. And when Lohr and Pearson-Mims, in 2006, let their test subjects choose between pictures of trees with round crowns, trees with a conical shape (such as conifers), and trees with wide, scattered crowns (such as acacias), they preferred trees with wide, scattered crowns. The biggest scientific problem of research on the savanna hypothesis is that what characterizes the “savanna landscape” has never been precisely defined. The different studies therefore do not necessarily measure the same thing. Another problem is that our ancestors lived in very different environments and at one point populated all of the world’s climatic zones. Part of what characterizes us as a species is that we are good at adapting to many different environmental conditions. That being said, it seems that we are nevertheless especially drawn, by nature, to savanna-like landscapes with water, views, and shady trees with wide crowns that are easy to climb because these environments are better equipped with the vital material resources than others (Figure 4.5). Furthermore, we also seem to take aesthetic pleasure in landscapes and landscape imagery that show depth and open up to new places. Landscapes with hidden areas for us to explore. You see, new places might hold new food items and this is key for a curious, stimulation-seeking, and pretty much omnivorous creature like the human, who is equipped with a natural urge to investigate its surroundings.32 On the whole, nature and nature images still mean a lot to us even though we have, at this point in history, basically all become city dwellers who live in

FIGURE 4.5. Japanese gardens. Japanese gardens are examples of soul-friendly landscapes.

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densely populated city spaces. When you ask people what they would prefer to have in the open areas of their area of the city, they prefer something green and natural, such as a tree and some plants, rather than different man made or dead objects.33 Game designers are fully aware of this. If you have played Sim City, you will therefore also know that you can increase the value of a neighborhood if you put in a green space. Natural scenes simply act as stress relief, and when we get sick and are admitted to hospitals, we recover faster, have fewer complications, use less pain medication, have lower blood pressure, and experience less anxiety if we have a view of trees, nature, and vegetation from our beds (pictures and tapestries with natural imagery also work).34 Our work environment can also be affected by natural stimuli. In a study at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, the indoor climate and the health of the employees was greatly improved when 25 boxes with different plants were placed here and there in the 80 m2 room used for analyzing X-ray pictures. They also installed-full spectrum daylight tubes in the room. The results showed a significant decrease in health problems by 25%. Problems such as fatigue, headache, and general discomfort such as “heavy-headedness” and “dry throat” were reduced with as much as 45%.35 Architects are increasingly beginning to use this knowledge when designing the rooms they construct. The field of “healing architecture” is a strong-growth field today.

Aesthetics and Aversion Disgust and the ugly parts of our view of the surroundings, and thus the subjects we inherently perceive as atrocious, repulsive, and hideous, are of course just as pivotal key stimuli as the attractive ones, and here we also find innate alertness and sensibilities. For example, the sight and smell of rotting meat cause disgust in humans throughout the world—a disgust so severe that it often triggers a gagging reflex—while the same stimuli only trigger an eating impulse in other species such as vultures, hyenas, and rats. Rotting meat contains many damaging microorganisms that can be dangerous to us. These microorganisms also have the ability to multiply in record time, so there is no safe minimum dosage for consumption. The feeling of aversion functions as a vital microbe detector designed by evolution. Furthermore, humans are the only species that systematically spice their food, and the best known and most often used spices have a powerful eliminating effect on microbes that slow the rotting process. A number of studies similarly show that it is easy to condition fear and avoidance reactions to subjects such as snakes, spiders, bugs, heights, small space, vast open spaces, loud sharp noises, and blood in experimental settings.

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These are all subjects that have been associated with danger during human evolution. Even subliminally presented stimuli of these subjects (that is, pictures presented faster than the mind can consciously perceive them) trigger a fear response.36 Humans also detect danger-relevant images of spiders and snakes hidden among images of flowers and fungi much more easily than they are capable of detecting harmless subjects hidden among images of snakes and spiders.37 On the other hand, dangerous objects created by culture that pose a much greater threat to us today, such as weapons, cars, electric wires and machines, cigarettes, and drugs, are difficult to condition fear responses to. These dangers are simply too new for the psyche to have developed an innate alertness to these objects. If we look at the imaginary creatures that we love to stimulate ourselves with in stories, novels, and horror films, such as witches, trolls, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and zombies, we find that exactly these creatures are associated with darkness, murky places, dark forests, underground caves, and big empty houses where we are alone and unprotected—locations and circumstances that have been evolutionary dangers to us. Furthermore, these creatures are often associated with the characteristics of a predator:  sharp teeth and claws, fur and hair, or ugly and disgusting features such as pale skin, warts, grotesque physical deformities, or—in the case of the zombie—rotting flesh. Here, as well, all the evolutionary signs of danger are showing, so even when we are “relaxing” with a horror film, the fear-eliciting subjects are not random.38 Human perversions and the odd attraction to certain subjects in the surroundings, which we know as fetishism, are also interesting phenomena seen from the perspective of key stimuli. Let’s take a closer look at the strange world of fetishes.

Aesthetics and Fetishism: Key Stimuli and Power Objects He is wet with sweat, and he feels arousal starting to take control of him. But first he must finish the job. They have been going at it for almost an hour now. Immersed in silent concentration, he has undressed her. Removed all the trivial everyday garments. All traces of reason and function—profane and unimportant. Anything not worthy of a Goddess. Then he has opened the door to the sacred place—the wardrobe containing the corsets, and carefully selected the right one for her. Using all his strength, he has laced and tightened the many strings. Meticulously shaped her body. Narrowed her waist as much as possible, so that he can enjoy her breasts and bottom squeezed to the point of bursting. Slowly, it has emerged. The shape more beautiful than any other. The female hourglass figure. Intense erotic essence. The woman has been reduced to feminine geometry and elevated to Goddess in one tightening effort.

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He is a rare being—an animal that stages its own nature through culture. An animal that skillfully manages to orchestrate the innate sensibilities of its species and one that can consciously engineer the key stimuli that excites and stimulates it. Now, she is so titillatingly beautiful, so fascinatingly lovely that he has no choice but to submit to her. She turns, slowly, and looks into his eyes. “Are you my slave boy?” she asks calmly. “Yes,” he whispers and shivers with delight. We find ourselves in the fascinating world of fetishism, and although you may not share the fetish for corsets, you have likely been affected by the stimuli you have just received. You would probably like to hear more about the couple in the room, and perhaps images of your own appeared in your mind and lured you onto the paths of pleasure. After all, this is about arousal, lust, and desire. About power, attraction, and beauty. And yet the field of psychology has had trouble understanding the distinctive lust objects and the orchestration of urges in the world of fetishism. A fetish is a power object—a specific emotionally loaded object, body part, or situation that draws our attention and desire—and the sexual fetishism is the sexual arousal that a person experiences when in contact with such a loaded object. But how does something as trivial as a random garment, for example, become a power object? This was hard to understand, and so fetishism initially landed in the category of perversions as “unhealthy,” “repulsive,” and “abnormal” behavior that avoids the “normal,” “healthy,” and natural targets of reproduction: intercourse and the genitalia of the opposite sex. These days it is possible for us to view fetishism from a more objective perspective. What happens if we remove the forms of fetishism from the category of perversions and instead perceive them as aesthetics and titillation of the senses? If we see them as attraction to and sensuous gravitation toward certain stimuli that are perceived as especially beautiful, lovely, and exciting? Do these phenomena then become more understandable? That is my opinion, but first: a little history.

The Psychological History of Fetishism Within psychology, the French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857–1911) was the first to use the concept Fetichisme in an erotic context in 1887. To him fetishism was the pathological result of associations. He argued that, in certain vulnerable individuals, an emotionally lustful childhood experience with a certain object (the fetish) could lead to later fetishism, and this associationism was later taken over by sexologists such as Richard von Kraft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis.

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Freud was one of the first to theorize elaborately about this phenomenon. To him, fetishism is a masculine phenomenon caused by the unconscious fear of female genitalia, which all boys suffer from, according to Freud.39 A boy’s infantile assumption is that all people are equipped with the same parts as he is, and thus the sight of female genitalia evokes castration anxiety in all members of the male sex, or so Freud presumes. If a woman/mother has lost her penis, then he could also lose his. Consequently, the fetish object is a replacement for female genitalia and their uncomfortable association with castration. In this way, fetishism works as an unconscious denial of the castration trauma and as a substitute for the lacking female penis. Furthermore, fetishism saves a man from becoming a homosexual. With the help of fetishism, he can preserve his perception of women as erotic objects. And as the fetish object is often a rather unerotic object to anyone other than himself, he can publicly pursue his desire for it relatively unnoticed. To a foot fetishist, even a visit to the footwear department can be a powerfully tantalizing experience. The phenomenon thus has its advantages and Freud also admits that fetishists rarely seek out treatment for their own fetishism. They simply do not consider their inclinations symptoms of a condition. On the contrary—they appreciate the intense sensory titillation produced by the fetish object. Still, he sees no other way than to put these desires into the category of perversion as pathology requiring treatment. There are many issues with Freud’s theory. Fetishism is not just a masculine phenomenon. Even within the masculine universe it is impossible for this theory to be generalized and used as the common explanation. There is no indication that all males experience castration anxiety. To put it briefly, it is a highly unlikely biological creature that Freud is imagining: an animal anxious about the genitalia of the opposite sex! Fetishism is not just a sexual phenomenon, either. Man is a symbolic animal and the world is full of emotionally loaded power objects. In the world of merchandise there are brand fetishes such as Louis Vuitton purses, Louboutin stilettos, Ferrari cars, and Rolex watches—brands with so much power that their products can cost a fortune compared to other products with the same function but less power. Similarly, the religious world is full of powerful fetish-like talismans, amulets, relics, and shrines that can perform miracles and that believers devoutly file past, kiss, touch, and perform complex rituals with. The fetishistic moment is thus present in far more phenomena and parts of life than those on which Freud concentrated. Psychologists have also attempted to understand fetishism in light of Ivan Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning.40 In this case, fetishism is considered a simple acquired or conditioned response triggered in childhood. A random object is eroticized because it appears in a situation in which the individual is already experiencing lust and sexual arousal. This object is henceforth associated

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with lust in the same way that Pavlov’s dogs learned to slobber at the sound of a bell because this sound had previously been connected to feeding time. Thus, fetishism is something we acquire if the conditions are right for it. And fetishistic reactions can be taught. If young men are repeatedly exposed to images of black boots in combination with erotic images of naked women, these men will then henceforth react with sexual arousal when presented with just a pair of black knee high boots. Thus, the theory of conditioning contains more scientific evidence and more apparent common sense than the psychoanalytical theory, and it does not confine itself to considering fetishism as an exclusively masculine phenomenon. However, this theory, too, has its shortcomings. Once again, only the individual and the sexual fetishism is explained, not the many cultic or cultural fetishes of the masses or all the power objects that we all worship or are fascinated by and where individual classical conditioning cannot apply. Furthermore, the conditioned stimuli response connections, on which the theory is based, cannot always be found on an individual level either. The fetishist themselves do not have any memory of conditioning and generally do not understand how or when this desire is supposed to have been acquired. Strictly speaking, the men in the aforementioned experiment did not exactly become boot fetishists. After the experiment, the female body remained their primary source of excitement, and the boots were only arousing because they reminded them of the young, naked female bodies that had been presented to them along with the boots. I am not denying the possibility that some fetishes are conditioned responses, nor that a personal fetish can work as a substitute for a woman’s lack of a penis and thus curb an experience of castration anxiety in an exceptional case. However, we cannot base a common theory on such unique or exceptional cases. Consequently, the field of psychology has not yet offered a theory that can adequately explain these lustful inclinations. But we may have such a theory if we remove these phenomena from the category of perversions and into the world of key stimuli, innate sensibilities, and species-typical preferences on which our aesthetics are based. In brief, we need to look into the micro processes of the aesthetic impulse to understand why something captivates and fascinates us.

Key Stimuli and Species Programming As we have seen, key stimuli are particularly powerful stimuli that we have been programmed to pay extra attention to because they have guided us toward making the right fitness-enhancing choices. A kind of alpha stimuli, which automatically dominate other input in the human hierarchy of attention and

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which make all other stimuli seem like insignificant background noise when they occur together. A topic or an object that contains important key stimuli therefore automatically becomes a power object or a fetish. For example, the color red on lingerie and bed linen is a fetish treasured by many and red is, as we saw, a key stimulus to a great number of species. In chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and gibbons,—where the backside of females reddens and swells considerably when they are ovulating—the color red elicits sexual attraction and a desire to mate, and in humans, too, the color red is an aphrodisiac associated with sexual arousal, attraction and romance. The corset fetishist from the introduction is not alone, either. The extremely tight corset, which greatly enhances the female hourglass figure, is a treasured fetish, and its appeal is very much due to the fact that it enlarges and exaggerates typical key stimuli. Within the field of ethology, scientists refer to supernormal stimuli. A term minted by Nico Tinbergen in his seminal work The study of Instinct from 1951. For example, some species of gull chicks are, in their food searching behavior, programmed to search for the red dot on the beak of the adult bird. But if they are presented with a red pencil, they follow this rather than a lifelike bird head as the reinforcement of the red key stimulus makes the pencil a supernormal stimulus. Moreover, if oystercatchers are presented with a grotesquely enlarged version of their normal eggs, they are drawn to this giant egg rather than the others and will attempt to incubate it even though they cannot even lie on top of it. This object is simply so very Egg that oystercatchers must commit to it. Similarly, the tightly laced corset acts as an irresistible supernormal stimulus on some because it intensifies the sexual key stimulus that is the female hourglass figure by presenting them with an exaggerated wasp waist. Maybe you or your partner do not have the ideal body shape, but with the right corset you can shape, kid and cultivate nature and hence treat yourself to a heighten sexual arousal, like an animal that can consciously engineer the key stimuli that excite and stimulate it. Others have a fetish for grotesquely big breasts or buttocks. And perhaps the very voluptuous Venus figurines of prehistoric art are created as a titillating super stimuli of female characteristics. These women figurines certainly do have enormous breasts and buttocks, and, with an average hip-to-waist ratio of 0.65, they are also curvier than most women41. A smooth and flawless skin is also a biological fitness indicator that denotes health and youth. We are all attracted to this type of skin, but, unfortunately, we are not all blessed with it. Consequently, tightfitting latex suits that cling to the body like an extra layer of skin are very popular in the world of fetishism. This is probably because the artificial skin functions as a super stimulus that exaggerates the normal healthy human skin and thus forms the perfect skin: Young, smooth, pure, flawless, elastic, and protective.

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S & M, Bondage, and Infantilism: The Fetishes of Power Being social-hierarchic creatures, it can be very exciting to stage and exaggerate the key stimuli for power, status, dominance, and submission that we, by nature, are especially tuned to. This is also why the world of fetish is full of sadomasochistic role-playing and bondage play in which dominatrices establish master/ slave relationships and stage the species-typical patterns of dominance and submission that our species employs. Domination is natural to a social-hierarchic animal, but it is also natural to obey and submit to a legitimate authority, as Stanley Milgram’s classic experiments on obedience have shown. Moreover, both these titillating positions can be staged and outlived with pleasure, because it feels right when a natural action pattern is released by the right key stimuli, just as it feels good to be good—to dutifully follow orders and find one’s place in a hierarchic structure. Even naturally dominant men may enjoy taking the submissive part in these roleplays. First, it is not real, but consensual role-playing. Second, we are ambivalently drawn to things that scare us. If you need proof, just look at the fascination we hold for rollercoasters, reptile houses, monsters, horror movies, and film villains. Pointy, high-heeled shoes, long boots, and collars with spikes are similarly classic ingredients in this world of titillation, and these fetishes are also meaningful, given that our species is particularly alert to sharp, pointy, jagged, and spiky shapes (Figure 4.6).

FIGURE 4.6.

Latex-Bondage fetish.

Source: goldeneden/Shutterstock.com

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To some people, feet—and footwear—are a particularly piquant fetish to be desired, kissed, licked, and stepped on by. In this case, as well, the orchestration of submission key stimuli is present. Just think of all the portrayals of submission and dominance in art. When we submit to someone, we cower, get down on our knees, grovel, avoid eye contact, and kiss their feet. The dominator, on the other hand, glowers, controls, and dismisses. Feet are considered dirty because they touch the ground. They can therefore be used to pose someone as weak, which, to some, makes them a powerful fetish in a game of dominance. However, it is possible that there is sometimes a more direct link between feet and sexual desire. The areas in the somatosensory cortex of the brain that process sensory input from the feet are located right next to the areas processing genital stimulation, which means that some neural interference and double firing between the two areas is possible, as shown by neurologist Ramachandran.42 Thus, stimulating the feet may occasionally trigger genital activation, and this close connection may be the reason that a foot can be an especially titillating fetish and why shoes are a true passion that some people practically cannot get enough of. Uniforms are another fetish that stages human power and dominance relationships. A  uniform depersonalizes someone and elevates the wearer to a symbol of power. Furthermore, a uniform often exaggerates the dominant man’s broad shoulders with shoulder pads and epaulettes, thereby creating the desirable inverted triangle shape that we associate with power and status and that women find attractive in men. However, the need to relinquish control and surrender to someone can also be acted out in radical ways other than through S&M and bondage play. We can see this, for instance, through the fetish for infantilism and the objects and sensory stimuli of the baby world such as nappies, teddies, bottles, adult-sized cots and playpens, which the so-called “adult babies” are drawn to. These infantilists wear nappies and have other people change and feed them, while they find peace and security removed from the responsibilities and power struggles of the adult world by regressing to a world of senses, momentary needs, and bowel movements. They seek out the key stimuli of parental care through which they have the opportunity, in safe spaces, to return to a world without responsibilities, without control, and without worry. The examples shown here must do. As I have attempted to show, the main forms of fetishism can be understood as aesthetic power objects as they combine, enlarge, and exaggerate critical key stimuli from the species’ registry and in this way they are not significantly different from other things we find attractive. The valuable objects of the art and design world can also make use of key stimuli, as we shall see in Chapter 10, and in doing so they function, like sexual fetishes, as fascinating power objects that we want to be in possession of and associated with. Fetishism is aesthetics and aesthetics is, to a significant degree, the attraction to fetish-like power objects.

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Power Objects and Micro Processes Let us briefly recapitulate. When dealing with key stimuli, natural alertness, innate sensibilities, and species-typical preferences, we are looking into the micro processes that trigger and drive the aesthetic impulse. A work of art or a decoration that is able to incorporate these elements into its artistic expression will have our guaranteed full attention and will more easily be considered beautiful, provocative, and existentially significant than pieces without or with fewer of these elements. Key stimuli are particularly powerful stimuli that we have been programmed by evolution to pay extra attention to because they have guided us toward making the right fitness-enhancing choices. You might call them a kind of alpha stimuli, which automatically dominate other input in the human hierarchy of attention. In a similar way, an object or topic that contains important key stimuli automatically becomes a power object, or an alpha object if you will, and therefore something you are drawn to, fascinated by, and want to own or be associated with because you then obtain a part of the power that the object exudes. Artworks that are based on important key stimuli function—like sexual fetishes—as special power objects. According to Dissanayake,43 artistic behavior can be boiled down to a “making special” process. Something is made special because it has been created with great care and effort. I do not disagree. I simply think that we can get closer to an understanding of the “making special” process by incorporating our knowledge of key stimuli and innate sensibilities in the understanding of artistic effects. Great effort is one of the things that transforms a simple object such as a cup, a bowl, or a shield into a power object when it is decorated. Especially if we choose some of the colors and shapes that the immediate attention reflex is already tuned to, for example the powerful “zig zag” pattern, for the decoration. This is an area in which evolutionary psychology can help shed light on aesthetic processes. However, it is of course important that we not be reductionists who only consider innate tendencies. Our senses and aesthetic taste evolve and become more cultivated throughout our lives. For example, today I  can appreciate the complex and “inharmonious” forms of music such as experimental jazz and “thrash” or “death metal” that I did not like 20 years ago. And as art and literature have been my interests for basically my entire life, I  now get to the murkier corners of these fields and appreciate things that may appear bizarre, ugly, incomprehensible, or insignificant to some, but which interest and stimulate me. Thus, the experience of art cannot simply be reduced to just key stimuli. I want to make that clear before we continue our investigation of these stimuli. We are looking into the biological micro processes of the aesthetic impulse in this book because

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this field has been largely overlooked until only a few years ago and because fields such as biology, ethology, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology can greatly enrich an otherwise completely humanistic area of research. But the goal is not to steal the ball from the humanities. The goal is to join the match. In the following chapter we will continue the investigation of aesthetic expression and ask whether the human need for embellishment and artistic expression through song, dance, and music can also act as signals of fitness, which let the world know that something special is happening. Are aesthetic behavior and ability reliable sources, which, like the peacock’s tail, indicate that we are dealing with a particularly talented and resourceful individual with whom it would pay off to combine genes? Is this behavior, like the magnificent structures of the bowerbirds, a sexually selected impulse in humans, or does artistic expression also serve other functions? These are some of the questions we will be asking in the following chapter.

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The Human Peacock BODY ORNAMENTATION AND ARTISTIC BEHAVIOR FROM TRIBAL SOCIETY TO MODERN PRIMITIVES

Humans do not simply decorate themselves with body and face paintings, jewelry, colorful feathers, animal skins and patterned fabrics. They also pluck, cut, plait, and shape their body and facial hair, as well as go through lengthy, painful, and potentially fatal body modifications with the sole purpose of attracting the attention of the opposite sex and recognition and respect from their peers and elders. They deform the shape of their skull, like the Maya Indians and Bopoto people of Africa, by tightly tying string and plates around the heads of infants so they get high foreheads that slope backwards. They pierce and stretch the skin of their lips, like the Mursi people in the southwestern part of Ethiopia or the Xingu people of the Amazon, with increasingly larger lip plugs until the human mouth is the size of a duck’s beak (Figure 5.1). Or they wear heavy brass rings around their necks, like the Paduang women in Thailand, which are gradually increased in number until it looks like a long, slender giraffes’ neck (Figure 5.2). Throughout the world, people pierce their noses, lips, ears, and genitals and put rings, jewelry, and feathers into these holes. They ornament their faces and bodies with geometric scars. They brand and cut themselves to produce beautiful patterns. They pierce their skin with needles and bone splinters with color on them to produce colorful engravings on face, arms, legs, and torso. Even eyelids and the inside of the mouth and nose are tattooed in some tribes, like the Maoris south of Australia and the Nuka Hivas of the Marquesas Islands.1 What a strange creature man is to go to such extremes to shape their appearance according to an aesthetic idea of the mind. To a modern westerner, these radical—and most of all permanent—body ornamentations may seem like barbaric and primitive practices from an archaic past, but for the people who wear these ornaments, in the societies in which they are created, they are signs of civilization. They are cultural markers, which define the person as a social being,

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FIGURE 5.1.

Lip and ear piercings, Mursi tribe.

Source: Sarine Arslanian/Shutterstock.com

show they belong in a specific tribe, and separate the wearer from the animals of the forest, as well as from people outside the fellowship of the tribe. The Bafia tribe of Cameroon, West Africa create long vertical scars on their faces to distinguish themselves from pigs and chimpanzees. The Nuba people of Sudan think that the crucial difference between them and the animals around them is the fact that they can shave their head and body hair and make their skin soft. The Roro people of New Guinea, who practice extensive tattooing, describe a person who is not tattooed as “raw,” whereas a person who is tattooed is like cooked food and thus transformed by a human, cultural process from a biological creature, an animal, to a social being. And not until these characteristics are in place does the individual fully and completely take part in the duties and privileges of the tribe. This means getting married, taking part in politics and war, being an adult among adults, and so forth.2 The human need to embellish and modify one’s body is an innate species characteristic that is not found in other species and is one of the most ancient examples of the expression of the aesthetic impulse. We must assume that this behavioral pattern emerges after the aesthetic appreciation of the shapes and colors of the world, which we have already seen in the human ape, Australopithecus, and before the need to decorate the surroundings. After all, we find traces of color pigment and jewelry before we find figurines, decorated tools, and cave paintings in the archaeological layers.

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FIGURE 5.2.

Girl and woman from Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Source: Angelo Giampiccolo/Shutterstock.com

Body decorations are a uniquely human form of communication and signaling. From a quick glance at the clothing and jewelry of a person, we can quickly gather information about this person’s identity and marital, religious, political, ethnic, social, and material status. We can also guess which subcultural subgroup this person associates with, and we can estimate whether this person is “the real deal” or just a “wannabe,” as my teenage daughter would put it. Humans are semioticians, are sign interpreters if you will, and there are plenty of signals in the way we dress and the jewelry we wear. There are so many that it is legitimate to consider our body decorations the first forms of IT (information technology and information transfer) developed by our species3. On a species level, these signs are evidence of humans becoming a complex symbolic animal. We are now capable of manipulating symbols, and are able to consciously signal social information about ourselves to our surroundings. Furthermore, the frequency and scope of these signs tell us something about

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the demography, size, and complexity of a society, because it is only relevant to signal social information through body and clothes in places where you will communicate with strangers on a regular basis that you have a chance to meet again. Our closest relatives and friends already know these things in detail. Thus, body ornamentation is communication. On this point, there is agreement. The disagreement occurs when it comes down to assessing the functionality of this behavior and answering the question of whether this behavior serves a deeper purpose, because why do we do these odd things?

Art and Body Ornamentation as Fitness Indicator and Personal Advertising In Chapter 3, we saw how Darwin himself related the human aesthetics and displaying of artistic abilities to the courtship rituals and mating games of the animal kingdom, and it is reasonable to view our spectacular body modifications as a human counterpart to the sexually selected color, feather, and behavior display of birds, for instance. It is also possible that these expressions, for our species as well, function as reliable fitness indicators that inform the world that we are dealing with a healthy and strong organism that can expose itself to these potentially infection- and disease-inducing practices without getting sick or dying.4 Tattoos, piercings, brands, and scarification or the engraving of scars like patterns in the skin are not just painful but also dangerous body modifications, not least in the early days before aseptic tools and sterile environments (Figure  5.3). Even today, up to 20–30% of modern piercings are related to infections or the transmission of blood-borne diseases,5 and tattoos can also cause severe allergic reactions and infections. People who go through with these ordeals therefore signal that they are capable of taking the risk, are genetically healthy and strong organisms with high-functioning immune systems, and that they are daring and persevering individuals. This is all evolutionarily relevant information and a reliable fitness indicator that you cannot cheat your way to. An interesting side effect, however, is that these ornamentations can also strengthen the immune system, if you survive them. The keloid scars or “coffee bean scars” that many tribal people use to decorate themselves are made by taking a thorn shaped like a hook or a sharpened bone tip and lifting the skin up and then putting an incision into the lifted skin. The cut area is then rubbed with a mixture of juice and ashes so that the wound becomes infected and will later heal as a hard scar relief (Figure 5.4). Some scars are reopened and reinjected several times until the skin attains the desired effect of ornamental relief. These many small, infected wounds work, in the best-case scenario, as a

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FIGURE 5.3.

Keloid scarification.

Source: Dietmar Temps/Shutterstock.com

kind of vaccination that activates the immune system defense and strengthens and hardens the organism against future infections. However, we do not simply embellish ourselves with aesthetic body ornaments. Some of us catch the attention of our surroundings through a range of aesthetic behavioral patterns by painting, writing, singing, dancing, playing, and moving in certain artistic ways that not everyone is able to copy. Are these aesthetic behaviors also sexually selected fitness indicators? Darwin and Nietzsche believed so. And a contemporary evolutionary psychologist like G. F. Miller follows and supports this theory with empirical data. So let us have a look at it. “Artists, if they are any good, are (physically as well) strong, full of surplus energy, powerful animals, sensual; without a certain overheating of the sexual system a Raphael is unthinkable. To produce music is also in a sense to produce children.” Nietzsche wrote this in 1872 in one of his diary entries, which were later published as The Will to Power. He continues: “It is one and the same force

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FIGURE 5.4.

Keloid scars, girl, Suma tribe.

Source: Dietmar Temps/Shutterstock.com

that one expends in artistic creation and in the sex act; there is but one kind of force.” As with Freud, there is a straight line from sex to art, but with Nietzsche this line is not neurotic—not disturbed, displaced, or sublimated desire looking for other outlets. With Nietzsche, art is pure potency. It is an animalistic seduction strategy where a beautiful, talented animal flashes its abilities for the purpose of impressing and inseminating its mate and thus pass on its genes as much as possible. It is art likened to the erect peacock tail: beautiful, grandiose, inconvenient, and in itself completely useless. But it was made to fascinate and seduce. Two great contemporaries—Freud and Nietzsche—had grasped different ends of the same concept, and today it appears that Nietzsche was grasping the stronger end when it comes to this question. G. F. Miller is clearly inspired by Darwin and Nietzsche’s ideas in his understanding of this matter. According to Miller,6 culture is an arena made for the performance of a range of courtship and mating rituals through which individuals attempt

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to attract and retain sexual partners. In this arena, human artistic activity functions as reliable (“hard to fake,” as he puts it) fitness indicators that advertise the individual’s good genes, general health condition, high intelligence, creativity, and stamina. The meaningless waste of time, effort, and resources of artistic activity is thus, as indicators, meaningful performances through which a talented individual, in a way similar to that of the bowerbirds, advertises its resources to the purpose of attracting potential mates. As it is the female who is mainly responsible for parental care in most species, including our own, it is also the female who makes the primary choice— the picky chooser that needs to be convinced and seduced and that decides which gene pools she wants to invest in. Consequently, this is also why the males, in most species, are the most active in the performance of the different courtship rituals.7 If our artistic behavioral patterns are courtship rituals, we should thus expect an increased artistic activity in males of our species. We should also expect this activity to be richer and most frequently unfolded in youth, where the sexual competition is greatest, and then to gradually decrease during adulthood, where parental effort and child care surpasses courtship. So far, studies, performed by Miller and by others, suggest there could be something to this notion. For example, Miller tested the aforementioned gender and age hypotheses on 16,000 culture products and found a tremendous masculine dominance. Men produced up to ten times as many publicly exhibited art and culture products as women. Men produced up to twenty times as many jazz records, eight times as many paintings, and three times as many books as women. Similar differences were discovered with rock records, classical records, theater productions, and philosophical works. Furthermore, this production greatly increases from the age of 20, culminating around the age of 30, then rapidly declines until the age of 50, and slowly declines until the age of 70.8 However, the fact that more male than female artists publicly exhibit and professionally perform does not mean that the aesthetic sense and impulse is therefore smaller in women. Just that it manifests itself in a more private and less public way in women. Women do not, to the same extent as men, have the need and advantage of showing off to the opposite sex. Men’s sexual interest is already present, and far more men than women are willing to have casual sex with a random stranger, should the opportunity present itself, as a series of studies have shown.9 Women do not need many partners or the stress and nuisance that come with putting on an inviting display. They need good partners; therefore, their aesthetic displays and games are often less public and more targeted toward specific males rather than any male. We can also expect that many of the woman’s aesthetic displays will occur and continue after the sexual contact has been commenced and after offspring have been produced, as a strategy to maintain the interest and engagement of

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the partner, and that many of these aesthetic activities will take place within the home. In many homes, a woman is in charge of the aesthetics and decorations of the home, and sometimes even the man’s clothing becomes her domain. Miller’s theory thus determines that there will be aesthetic and artistic dispositions in both sexes, as well as the motivational systems required for these activities, but that men will be more prone to choose a more public and aggressive form of talent display that is transmitted far and wide in order to leave more traces in culture than the less public and more focused strategies of women. Scholars with a more society-focused and cultural constructivist view argue that our behavioral patterns reflect learned upbringing and gender role patterns. They are less convinced by these data and contentions or by the parallels with the courtship rituals of the animal kingdom demonstrated here. To them, nurture is paramount and gender differences are taught. However, in spite of a growing increase in equality between the sexes in the western world over the past 45–50 years, men still produce up to ten times as many publicly displayed art and culture creations within every comparable area as women, and it is not likely that environment and nurture alone can explain this. However, there is no biological hindrance for women to take a more public position in the world of art and culture. Women simply tend to achieve their goals in other ways. Miller’s theories have found indirect support in a new series of studies. For example, Crocchiola10 found that artistic behavior is associated with masculine hormones such as androgen and testosterone. Performing artists (male as well as female) have been exposed to a higher concentration of these masculine hormones during their development in utero than their non-artistic peers.11 Furthermore, we now know that testosterone affects the areas of the brain responsible for birds singing. It is well-known that, in most species of songbird, only the males sing, even though both sexes hear the species-typical song in the nest. The females do not sing because they lack the hormonal stimuli to do so, but if you inject testosterone into females during spring season, they will sing like the males. However, if artistic behavior is a sexually selected fitness indicator, the pivotal evidence is that this characteristic can give the individual carrying it more or better reproductive opportunities than people without it, and that certainly appears to be the case. For instance, Nettle and Clegg12 found that a group of professional artists had had a greater number of sexual partners than the group of non-artists, who otherwise resembled the artists in terms of background variables such as age, income, and education in a study of 425 people. In another study, Haselton and Miller13 found that women who read short descriptions of different men while ovulating generally preferred creative but poor men over wealthy but uncreative men as short-term partners. Now we are getting close to something important. And when Guèguen and colleagues let a young male research assistant attempt to get a phone number from any of the

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300 women he happened to meet in the streets on a summer day in a French town in 2014, the assistant had significantly more success with this when he carried a guitar case than when he carried a sports bag or no bag at all. When he carried a guitar case, 31% of the women were willing to give him their phone number. When he carried a sports bag, only 9% of women were willing to do this, while 14% gave him their number when he did not carry a bag. In a very recent 2015 Swedish study of musicality and sexual behavior by Mosing and colleagues, Miller’s theory of sexual selection found partial support. Test subjects who scored high on musicality (the ability to discern between different notes, melodies, and rhythms) and musical prowess (the ability to play an instrument and performance experience) did not have significantly more sexual partners or an earlier sexual debut than people who scored low on these parameters. Although, interestingly, men who scored high on musical prowess had significantly more children than men who scored low on this parameter. Furthermore, they found a significant positive correlation, in both sexes, between musical results and general intelligence, which further makes musicality a relevant mate factor that it pays to notice.14 However, not everyone sees the benefit of reducing our aesthetic and artistic behavioral patterns to individual fitness indicators in the sexual competition for mating opportunities.

Art and Body Ornamentation as Group Markers and Unifying Collective Force The anthropologically oriented researcher Ellen Dissanayake, who we have already come across in Chapters 1 and 4, does not reject that our aesthetic behavior could function as an individual fitness indicator for the attraction of others. But for her, this is a much too limited view. She approaches art, as we have seen, from the point of ceremony and cult, and she mainly deals with the social and unifying forces of art. Reducing the biological function of the aesthetic impulse to an individual strategy for impressing and courting makes art and decoration an extremely competitive activity. This point of view completely overlooks the fact that artistic activities often create unity, fellowship, and cooperation, according to Dissanayake, as well as occur in social context such as tribal festivities and ceremonies.15 Furthermore, the different kinds of art come together and unite in ceremonies. There is both personal embellishment, painting, singing, dancing, music, and dramatization, as well as storytelling. The collective moments and possibilities of artistic behavior cannot be called into question. Style and decoration are, like dialects, ethnic markers that signal group and tribal membership and say something about the values and ethics of a community. If you, like Dissanayake, focus on ceremony,

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music, song, and dance, the social qualities of art become obvious. As we saw in Chapter 1, Dissanayake relates music, song, and dance to the soothing and calming ways of child care, and the unique opportunity of these forms of expression is their ability to affect the mood and behavior of a large group of people simultaneously, as well as gather these individuals into a coordinated unity. Experimental research of music as an aesthetic form now gives us a range of interesting results. Music is apparently able to, spontaneously and immediately, transfer coordinating information about tempo, pulse, arousal level, behavior, and mood to the members of a group. Thus, music is able to bring us together and make us one beat, one mood, one movement, and a collectively coordinated engagement.16 Anyone who has ever been to a concert is familiar with this phenomenon. As Queen plays “We Are the Champions” or “Radio Ga Ga,” the 40,000 individuals at Wembley Stadium are united in a rocking mass of synchronized bodies who, with their arms stretched high and with coordinated rhythmic claps, follow Freddie Mercury’s every movement (to mention one of my old favorites). Rhythm can synchronize groups and increase or decrease heart rate and breathing in the individuals who follow them. Even inferior vertebrates such as fish synchronize their breathing and the rhythm of their gills when listening to the beat of a metronome, and five-month-old babies show spontaneous physical synchronization to the music they hear.17 Furthermore, cross-cultural research shows that the mood or feeling communicated by the music (happy, light, cheery, sad, dark, heavy or agitated, aggressive, and threatening) is registered across different cultures.18 Thus, there is much evidence to back up the theory that forms of art like music, song, and dance have evolved for the sake of group life and in order to bring us together and coordinate our emotions and tempo. These forms of art need not only be individual fitness indicators and can clearly serve a cooperative purpose. Once again, however, talented singers, dancers, and musicians attract special attention, attract admirers, and thus, like the gifted bowerbird, attract mates. Any artist with some form of success can testify to this. So why choose between Miller and Dissanayake’s theories? Is light a wave or a particle? Is art an individual fitness indicator or a socially unifying collective force? The answer, in my opinion, is a resounding yes to both, and in the following I will attempt to show how these seemingly incompatible theories are really compatible.

The Social-Hierarchic Nature of Humans Let us now, like Dissanayake, take the tribal ceremony as our point of departure. Anthropological literature is full of in-depth studies of such events and,

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for the sake of this example, I suggest that we join O’Hanlon19 at the Wahgi Komblo Pig Festival. The Wahgi people are made up of highland tribes living around the Wahgi river in the western part of Papua New Guinea. Every 25–30 years, they throw lavish parties where the tribes of the area come together and slaughter a great number of pigs. At these parties, everyone decorates themselves according to customs with body paint, precious shells, and colorful feathers from the birds of paradise inhabiting the area. For days, they dance, sing, haggle over women, and challenge each other to duels. It is a social, but also a competitive, event, and the dance ceremonies that take place are very carefully studied and interpreted. First, there is the equipment. About their personal decoration, the Wahgis themselves say that “its purpose is to make our reputation.” The rare feathers they use for decoration are particularly costly to acquire (Figure 5.5). They cost pigs or money and are therefore obvious signs of status. In the clan that throws the pig party, the members therefore borrow funds from friends and family well in advance, so they can self-decorate accordingly. It brings shame not to be able to display a suitable ornamentation, and the men who are not up to the task are called Rabis or “filth.” Then there are the dances, which are performed in turn by the different clans. Here, too, there is advanced interpretation of the activity. Dance and decoration by the individual as well as by the entire group are thoroughly evaluated.

FIGURE 5.5.

Wahgi warrior dressed in party clothes.

Source: Amy Nichole Harris

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These observations are used politically to assess power, status, strength, and weakness of the neighboring clans, as well as to advertise themselves and their own clans as best they can. In a complex, social field, where there are many rumors, much gossip, and numerous ideas around, ornamentation and dance give reliable information about the actual resources of strength, wealth, stamina, and moral constitution of an individual and his tribe, according to these tribal people. In verbal communication, you can brag, exaggerate, understate, mislead, and deceive, but in dance and ornamentation the actual resources are displayed for everyone to see, if they know the code. Here, you see a reliable exhibition of the real strength, health, wealth, and the actual solidarity and collective power of the tribe. When this tribe can mobilize so many young, strong, beautifully decorated men, and when they master such a well-coordinated power display through dancing and drumming together, it is probably wise not to insult them, or the dowry they ask for might be very large. Between the sexes, the Wahgi courtship rituals are also a reflection of the mating rituals of the birds of paradise, whose feathers they decorate themselves with. It is the men who wear the feathers, ornaments, and do the powerful dance to invite, and the women who choose the man she wants to be with on the basis of this performance. As you can see, individual fitness indicators intersperse with powerful collective forces in these ceremonies. Even while the dancers dance, they watch and assess each other’s dancing, within the tribe as well as between the tribes. These assessments form the basis of the status they have as individuals and as tribes, and thus of the social, political, and sexual opportunities they have, compared to each other. The theories of Miller and Dissanayake simply describe two sides of human nature. Dissanayake’s theory primarily encapsulates our social group abilities, and Miller primarily encapsulates our hierarchic competitive sides and the battle for resources we also fight. Yet humans are social-hierarchic creatures, and thus we do not need to choose between these components when we wish to understand the function of the aesthetic impulse in human lives. Instead, we must realize that artistic behavioral patterns help us accomplish a range of key evolutionary tasks, regarding individual profiling as well as the sense of community, that our nature of social hierarchy gives us.

The Modern Return of the Primitives Fashion changes from season to season and people, in the wealthier part of the world, continuously renew their wardrobe, hair style, and make-up in accordance with the latest design trend. Thus, we also reveal our neophile nature as extremely stimulation-seeking creatures, who constantly seek new impressions

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and are quickly habituated and bored with the too familiar. Only one thing remains constant: our permanent obsession with personal ornamentation and our urge to spend time and resources on these decorative activities. Furthermore, we have observed an interesting modernity characteristic in western culture over the past 20 years. That is, that the primitive things have returned. Once again, an increasing number of modern humans tattoo, pierce, cut, scar, and burn their bodies and have thus become modern primitives, who practice a form of “New Tribalism.”20 Media and townscapes are full of them. The heroes of popular culture such as film, rock, and sports stars lead the way, and we follow them. Today, four to five out of ten Americans have a tattoo,21 and fans of these body modifications have their own international websites, publications, and magazines such as Body Play, Tattoo Time, and Piercing Fans International Quarterly (PFIQ), where performers can catch the latest trends and design innovation (Figure 5.6).

FIGURE 5.6.

Modern primitive.

Source: FXQuadro/Shutterstock.com

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But why do these 21st-century modern primitives seek out ancient aesthetic forms? When asked, their personal reasons fall into three main categories:22 1. Wanting a clear, personal mark of individuality that signals who you are, and which indicates creativity, freedom, and originality. It is also often a rebellion against the existing authorities. 2. Wanting to record and remember milestone events (service in war, big sporting events, and personal accomplishments) and the establishment of special relationships (romantic relationships, the birth of a child, membership of a specific group or subculture, etc.). 3. Deciding without much consideration as a spontaneous aesthetic impulse (“because it is beautiful”) and as stimulation, challenge, and a display of courage (“I have the guts to go through with this”) in moments of festivity and high arousal. The first reason, personal mark of individuality, in particular is characteristic of modernity. In the original tribal societies, tattooing and piercing was, to a much higher extent, a mark of integration and thus a social signal that marked the full inclusion into the tribe’s rites, norms, and status hierarchies rather than individuality, difference, and rebellion. The modern human is increasingly becoming a town-and-city human, and with the rising population density and increased anonymity, the need for selfidentification and personal branding has also become more significant. In my view, this is one of the explanations for the current aesthetic renaissance of body ornamentation. Dissanayake23 explains this return with philosopher George Lukac’s24 term transcendental homelessness. Humans are social, meaning-seeking beings. And in a world with increasingly fewer limits, where collective storytelling is declining, where everything solid melts into air, many of us reach once more for the absolute. Some become religious fundamentalists, while others find their way to the calm and safety they need through testimonials chiselled in their flesh, indicative of who they are and what they have experienced: “To go primitive is to go home,” as Dissanayake puts it. There is something ancient about this way of finding your identity and security. Tattoos are particularly popular in times of war and crisis.25 In an unpredictable world, those who may be about to die put a permanent mark on their skin as a kind of signal and magical armor. A  very popular motif, not least among young men, is the tattooed skull, which is its own poetic paradox with its permanent insistence on the transitoriness of life imprinted on a living being that is fully aware that it will die at some point. Other studies have shown that the practitioners of these body ornamentations (both men and women) are more sexually active and have their sexual debuts earlier than their untattooed and unpierced peers, and this tendency is amplified if an individual is both pierced and tattooed.26 Furthermore, psychological

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personality studies show that people with tattoos score higher on personality traits like stimulation seeking, extroversion, and the need to feel unique, as well as exhibit more daring behaviour than people with no tattoos. American studies of people with piercings indicate that this group of people report getting drunk and experimenting with illegal drugs more often than their peers.27 Put briefly, there are certain peacock-like characteristics to this behaviour in which an extrovert, bold, and sexually active organism flashes its vitality and its biological invulnerability to the surroundings through performance. Furthermore, other studies show that these signals can very well be reliable fitness indicators. An indication of biological quality, good genes, and organismic health is, as we have seen, body symmetry, and modern men with permanent body ornaments score significantly higher on body symmetry than their unornamented peers.28

Body Art and Performance Art Performing visual artists have also joined the game of body modification, and in the field of this performance oriented “Body Art,” a number of artists have adopted these radical body modifications. In the show Four Scenes in a Harsh Life, the heavily tattooed performance artist Ron Athey cuts his own face with razorblades, inserts needles into his head to form a crown of thorns, and carves geometric symbols into his skin after which these bleeding symbols are transferred onto blotting paper as a kind of pain art, and finally they are hung up to dry on a line positioned above the audience. In France, the female body artist Orlan, or Saint Orlan, as she calls herself, gave a televised performance of having plastic surgery in an operating room buzzing with activity. She is fully conscious during the procedure. With the cameras rolling, needles are injected, facial skin is loosened, and implants are inserted, and thus Orlan recreates art history with the plastic surgeon as the paintbrush and her own face as the canvas. A mouth like Mona Lisa’s is formed, and now a nose like Botticelli’s Venus. On her own account, she also has two little horns made on her forehead. She creates spontaneous self-portraits on paper using her fingers and the blood flowing from the procedure, and some of her facial tissue and fat is removed and encapsulated as relics in small boxes and sold afterward. It sounds radical, and of course it is, but Orlan simply uses a new range of body modification techniques, which are common and widespread in the modern world. In private clinics and hospitals all over the world, a vast number of plastic surgery body modifications are performed daily. Liposuctions on stomachs, hips, and thighs. Enlargement of lips, breasts, buttocks, and penises.

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Labia are trimmed and anuses are bleached. Hair is removed, moved, and transplanted. Noses are fixed, chins reshaped, and wrinkles smoothed out. The entire human body is transformed with scissors, scalpels, and injections of Botox. New times—new techniques. However, behind these techniques lies the same old urge to modify one’s appearance according to an inner aesthetic idea. But one substantial thing has changed: these new plastic surgery body modifications are not reliable fitness indicators. They have been bought with money and made to seduce and deceive. Nicole Kidman may look like a young woman in her 20s, but she was born in 1967 and is thus, at the time of writing, 50+. Put briefly, looks can be deceiving. This is something new. As if that was not enough, this tireless aesthetic animal does not just embellish itself but also its surroundings with fascinating colors, shapes, symbols, and patterns, and it is this behaviour to which we will now turn our attention.

6 }

Who Lives Here? DECORATION, DESIGN, AND ORNAMENTATION ON OBJECTS AND SURROUNDINGS

Man is an animal that likes to leave a mark on the landscape it inhabits and in the rooms it creates. The world of things we create is also full of distinct patterns and ornaments. Even our practical utility items often receive an added shapely beauty, which is entirely without consequence to their function but gives these objects an added aesthetic and social value, which makes them attractive and coveted to us. The first real hand axes, which our ancestors of the Homo habilis or Homo erectus line made according to a set idea around 1.4 million years ago, are beautifully drop-shaped and symmetric. Why are they like this when other, less symmetrical shapes would be far lighter and less time consuming to make and at least as functional for the everyday tasks such as butchering, carving, crushing of bones, plants, and roots to which axes were used? The best explanation is that, to these ancestors as well as to us and many other species, the symmetrical shape is an aesthetically pleasing shape in itself. This is a positively charged key stimulus, which, like the symmetrical face and the symmetrical body, indicates health and good qualities. This shape guides us in our choice of partners, and we are therefore also attracted to it when we make tools or choose among the utility items of the world. Furthermore, the beautiful, symmetrical hand axe also served as a possible fitness indicator of the person who managed to create such a harmonious object. It simply took a special gift, care, and effort to create these objects, and these valuable signals certainly were used in the social and sexual exchanges of the different members of the tribe in order to obtain prestige and mating advantages.1

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Folk Art and Decoration Throughout the world, we see signs of this care and this—objectively speaking— unnecessary addition of aesthetic value. For example, the Kassena tribe of Ghana paints their houses with beautiful geometric patterns of triangles, squares, and rhombuses arranged in horizontal bands. The colored walls are covered with a water-resistant varnish, which is made from the seeds of the local carob trees, and this treatment lasts about five years before the walls will have to be repainted. The Ndebele people of South Africa also decorate their houses with impressive geometric patterns and vivid colors (Figure 6.1). In both cultures, it is the women who are responsible for the decorating, and in both cultures these adornments are not just decorative but also highly symbolic visual designs, which refer to the tribe’s stories, history, and wars, as well as reflect feelings of anger, sorrow, protest, and joy in the context of these events. The imagery, and the care with which it has been painted, also tells the other members of the tribe a story of the women who painted them, which the tribe member can decipher from the symbols and paintings. From the walls, the person who is able to crack the code can read the women’s personal prayers, values, and emotions. They can tell if there will soon be a wedding in the house

FIGURE 6.1. Ndebele house, South Africa. Ndebele houses, South Africa. The patterns are associated with the history of the tribe. Source: Sviluppo/Shutterstock.com

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or if someone has recently died. Furthermore, the colors reflect the status and social power of the owner of the house, and the meticulous care obvious in the paintings shows that the woman living here is a good wife and mother. Finally, the sharp geometric patterns and designs, which also occur in the wickerwork of this culture, are stimulating contrasts to the soft organic shapes of the natural surroundings. And this characteristic style appeals to a stimulationseeking creature. Each region in a country has its own traditional craftwork. Some weave carpets, mats, and baskets and embroider cloths and shawls. Others carve figures and reliefs in furniture, doors, and gables or paint chicken’s eggs, like Rumanian country folk, in a tradition that goes back to ancient times and maybe even further (Figure 6.2). Everywhere, these activities are performed out of nothing but sheer pleasure, as excess aesthetic energy flowing freely in the colored symbols and patterns on everyday objects. These folkloric designs may be traditional, and every region has its own traditions, but even within a tradition there are distinct individual variations, and every decorator has their own identifiable style. Among thousands of eggs, you can still recognize the one you painted yourself years ago, and others can see that this egg was painted by Elena and this one by Ludmilla. The goal is to create something new, but it is novelty within tradition and variation within a specific thematic universe. Folk art is thus in no way perfunctory

FIGURE 6.2.

Rumanian eggs.

Source: Ionescu Alexandru/Shutterstock.com

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or slavish reproduction of archaic models, but constant variation within a certain aesthetic structure and theme.2 However, this aesthetic impulse is not only directed at our stationary and homely surroundings such as houses, interiors, kitchenware, and tools. We also decorate our means of transport to work and travel such as boats and cars. The canoes of the people of the Pacific are beautifully painted and have exquisite carvings and ornaments. The traditional fishing boats of Malta, known as Luzzus, are decorated with bright yellow, red, blue, and green colors and painted eyes and designs that can be traced back to the Phoenicians. Costa Rican ox carts and Sicilian donkey carts, the so-called Carettis, were originally simple work carts used on the road between field and village. The owners increased their aesthetic value with extensive paintwork covering each and every centimeter of the cart with colors and patterns. Each district has its own design, and the owners would compete for the production of the most beautiful carts. The patterns on the Costa Rican carts are painted free hand without any technical tools, and this requires excellent precision. Each of these carts also have their own sound, called “the song of the cart,” which is produced by a metal ring hitting the hub of the wheel as it goes. The imagery on the Sicilian carts is inspired by Sicilian history and folklore, and here the owners compete to see who can reproduce the most impressive scenes. The horse and harness are also decorated. This custom was later continued on Sicilian motor vehicles such as lorries and scooters. In Pakistan, and in parts of India, lorries and busses are meticulously decorated. This tradition dates back to the camel caravans, where the animals were decorated with colorful blankets, tassels, ribbons, and lucky charms, and this custom has been carried on in modern means of transportation. Lorries are decorated to the point where they can hardly perform their original functions. Every centimeter, including the wheels, mudflaps, bumpers, and side-view mirrors, is embellished with ornaments, flower patterns, painted images of local celebrities and film stars, attached objects made of plastic, wood, chiseled-out metal, and camel bones. The amount of time spent on this embellishment is astronomical, and the Pakistani lorries are probably one of the most grandiose example of folk art we know of. Yet this phenomenon of decorated vehicles is known around the world, from the Dekotora trucks of Japan, the Jeepneys of the Philippines, and the Rickshaws and Tuc tucs of Asia to our own custom-painted lorries, motorbikes, and cars. Furthermore, the people who take on these costly and time-consuming decoration jobs in their precious spare time are regular people with low-paying jobs and long workdays.

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The Function of Ornaments Ornamentation and decoration are, as evidenced, of no importance to the identification and function of the objects on which they are placed. Without decoration, we would still know that this is a house, a boat, or a wagon and we would still be able to use these objects for their intended purpose. Still, it would be unwise to say that ornaments do not hold a function. First, they embellish, which is certainly not inconsequential to an aesthetic and stimulation-seeking animal like man. Second, we humans are symbolic animals and as a result we are also spontaneous sign interpreters, and it therefore matters what the objects in or surroundings look like. Our possessions are extensions of ourselves: they are identity and self-symbols that signal taste, style, status, education, culture, class, group membership, and economic prowess. Like our body ornamentation, they are thus immediate communication, which transmits key social and evolutionary information about us to the surroundings. Furthermore, something suggests that our aesthetic ornaments, and the visual designs and shapes with which we decorate our surroundings, sometimes seem to spontaneously capture the essential aspects of the existential, material, and social conditions of the life of a group of people. Thus, these style and design expressions essentially become a kind of cognitive map of these people’s way of life and relations among them, which research can then decode. In other words, it is not always random why one specific design pattern and not an entirely different one emerges and settles with this exact group of people. But let us look closer into that. The anthropologists J. L. Fischer3 argues that humans unconsciously project their societal experience into the visual designs they create, and that these designs thus in turn reflect the social and material living conditions they live by. In an interesting study of 29 tribal societies, Fischer demonstrates a range of significant correlations between the different layers of society (i.e., how authoritarian/highly hierarchical or how equal/egalitarian these societies are) and the design expressions produced. In authoritarian societies, individual movement and freedom is restricted. Hierarchies confine and restrict individuals, and human relationships are more complex and regulated than the more loose, open, and free structures that characterize the interplay in egalitarian societies with less control and top-tobottom management. As a possible reflection of this life experience, authoritarian societies interestingly often hold 1. Complex designs that integrate many different elements; while you typically only find simple designs with only a few uniform elements repeated in egalitarian societies.

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2. Designs where the figurative elements are framed, enclosed, circled, and separated from each other; while you find designs with free unframed figures in egalitarian societies. 3. Asymmetrical designs with different elements; while symmetrical designs with only a few uniform elements are found in egalitarian societies. 4. Designs with many elements and very little empty space; while in egalitarian societies you will usually see designs with only a few elements and a lot of free space between each figure and element in egalitarian societies. In another study, the anthropologist Robbins4 shows how the physical qualities of the environment in which we live equally influences our visual preferences. Robbins examined how the geometric shape of housing affects the designs produced in different societies. He found, contrary to what he had expected, that people who live in round huts prefer straight lines, rectangles, and angles; while tribes building and living in quadratic houses typically prefer curved lines and round shapes in their aesthetic designs. These seemingly counterintuitive findings actually make good sense in light of the theory on optimal stimulation, which was presented in Chapter 1. If there is too little stimulation and novelty in the impressions we receive, we become bored and stimulation-seeking. If there is too much stimulation, we become stressed and withdraw. In a round environment, orthogonal designs help heighten the stimulation level by giving the eyes and the brain some new shapes to take in. The same goes for round shapes in a rectangular universe. Humans, as stimulation-seeking creatures, create the designs and shapes that optimize the environmental stimulus intensity—and thus they satisfy their stimulation needs. Fischer and Robbins’ studies are both interesting and thought-provoking. Anthropological research has typically been qualitative and has consisted of field studies with the anthropologist as a participant observer, and it is refreshing when someone tries to explore quantitative research and hypothesis testing. Obviously, not all ornamentation and decoration can be explained by using these models and dynamics. Certain designs are simply free and random manifestations of our inherent urge to create and embellish. Some are conscious constructions and yet others caused by entirely different dynamics than the ones mentioned. Additionally, I think that the idea of our aesthetics as unconscious reflections of our societal place and role and the material conditions of life has more to it than most of us usually think. We all like thinking of ourselves as conscious, independent creatures. Not least, the members of the so-called creative class are informed individualists with strong aesthetic preferences and well-considered design choices that reflect

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their own good personal tastes, right? A small anecdote may help illustrate this question. I live in a street with nice, well-educated people who care about how they live. We courteously chat with each other about this and that, and one day a woman from the neighborhood gleefully told me that she had just acquired the exact floor lamp she had wanted for so long. Before she had time to tell me what kind of floor lamp it was, I stopped her and asked if I could venture a guess. She agreed and I  presented her with two possible answers:  lamp A, a model made by a French designer icon, and lamp B, a Bauhaus-inspired model of the more industrial kind. I underlined that I strongly presumed that it was lamp B that now adorned her living room floor. Now, I  know it is not nice to bask in the sun of your own triumph and especially not at the expense of your friends. I  also know that anecdotes do not belong in a serious study of aesthetics, but I cannot help but use the example anyway. Because I was right (which slightly annoyed my neighbor), and this illustrates how what we consider deeply personal and conscious aesthetic choices are also signals and class code that include us in a particular segment of like-minded people, which can be interpreted and predicted by others. The industrial type lamp would simply add just the right amount of edge my neighbor wanted in her living room along with her other design classics and would thus complete the aesthetically subtle—yet class stereotypical—idea of the perfect home she wanted. Popular TV shows like “Who Lives Here?” employ this kind of style and consumption habit semiotics, and if an expert from the show came to my house, they would probably be able to say a lot about who I am as well. As the examples given so far have demonstrated, the aesthetic impulse makes people, regardless of environment and material resources, spend enormous amounts of time and money on artistic, decorative activities that add to the aesthetic and social value of their belongings and surroundings. We primarily decorate our own things and surroundings, but sometimes we direct our aesthetic impulse toward walls and surfaces in the public sphere, which some of us have voluntarily and spontaneously begun decorating. And this is in spite of the fact that these activities cost the artists money and sometimes also fines and jail time.

Graffiti: Art, Communication, or Vandalism? Humans have always made graffiti. There are traces from prehistoric caves and the walls of Pompeii right up to today, and from the end of the 1960s up to now this form of expression has steadily become more prevalent all over the cities of the world. Images, signatures, symbols, and markings spread across the city walls like webs. A battle for attention and recognition is fought

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in the darkness. It is considered vandalism by most people and great art by only a few. The modern term graffiti has its origins in New York in the late 1960s, where it was used to describe the markings, images, and symbols that young boys and men from the Bronx (predominantly men with an African American or Hispanic background) started painting on the walls of the city’s public space to inform their surroundings that they, too, were there. The term covers two main forms:  beautifully crafted wall paintings, depicted figures, motifs, or three-dimensional words and signatures, called pieces; and the simple, quickly made tags, which to outsiders merely appear to be doodles, but which, to the initiated, are stylized signatures, and thus identification signals, that refer either to a person or a group/gang that uses these tags as territorial markings (We rule this place). The public as well as the researchers who study this phenomenon regard these decorations with mixed feelings. To some it is art. To others it is communication—primarily political communication from marginalized groups—as a kind of resistance to the control of the city and the society they live in. And to yet others it is simply vandalism and destruction of public walls and places. This is a point of view shared by many countries’ systems of justice, where graffiti falls under the category of “anti-social behavior” and “disorderly conduct” in the same category as drunkenness, urination, littering, the hanging of posters, and vandalism. This is how graffiti is perceived from the outside. But how is it perceived from the inside and what motivates the practitioners to perform this kind of activity and expression, according to themselves? When the artists were asked in a series of large international studies with up to 154 participants, they tell a different tale: 1. To them, graffiti painting is first and foremost an aesthetic activity that is its own reward. The movement of the aerosol spray across the wall itself, and the colors it thus produces, is described as a pleasurable, desirable, and delightful activity. 2. At the same time, it is a social activity that gives the artists access to a community, a network, and a subculture. 3. A well-executed work grants the artist a sense of pride, satisfaction, status, and respect and can even make the artist a “celebrity” or “King” within that community. 4. Graffiti artists step out of the shadow and into the public sphere, make their mark, and thus affect their surroundings. 5. The activity yields stimulation and excitement. It is illegal. It needs to be performed quickly and concealed, like an attack, and it often occurs in dangerous and nearly inaccessible locations.5

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It is basically only young men and boys who paint graffiti, and this is probably not a coincidence. First, graffiti is a public aesthetic expression forced upon the surroundings. Graffiti artists paint in places for which they hold no property rights. Unlike the house paintings of the Kassena and Ndebele women, the men in the case of graffiti typically choose a more public and aggressive artistic expression than women, just as more aggressive and bold behavior has been selected in males through evolution because males are the ones who do most of the competing for mating opportunities.6 In this aspect, as in radical body ornamentation, there is a raised-peacocktail quality about this costly, dangerous, and simultaneously spectacular behavior. This aesthetic impulse is, as mentioned, pleasurable in itself, and the public display of this impulse in city space, where it is visible to everyone, is also powerfully satisfying to a creature of social hierarchy competing with others for attention and mating opportunities. Additionally, it gives a symbolic animal the chance to create, express, and signal its personal identity through a graphic symbol. As demonstrated by the five motivations of stimulation, excitement, network, respect, and self expression, the talented graffiti artist achieves a tour of all of the needs in Maslow’s pyramid through this activity and can tick the box at virtually every level. This is of course also powerfully motivating. But others outside this community perceive this phenomenon more negatively. Researchers such as Pani and Sagliaschi,7 who have primarily studied young men who make tags, consider these signatures vandalizing actions characterized by compulsion, which are primarily performed by young men with low selfesteem who try to find an immediate relief from their inner emptiness by filling all public space with their signature. If a wall is bare, they must make their mark on it. To Pani and Sagliaschi, the bare wall is a reflection of the inner void felt by these youths and the ensuing tag is a symbolic satiation of the need to fill this void. However, it is hard to determine how these researchers reached their interpretation of compulsion and inner emptiness based on the qualitative data they collected on the motivation of these young people and subsequently presented in their research. In this case, graffiti behavior becomes a kind of Rorschach test for the sympathies and antipathies of the researchers. What we are studying is a behavioral impulse—a spontaneous internal impulse that does not need external reward to exist. We are thus of course dealing with an internal commanding urge. But there is still a long way from urge to pathological compulsion. Compulsions are the defense intended to avoid anxiety. If you prevent a compulsive neurotic from performing his compulsions, they will experience anxiety. This does not happen if you prevent a graffiti artist from making their tag. Graffiti and tags are fundamentally pleasurable activities and not psychological defense mechanisms, which trigger anxiety if they are prevented.

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This does not mean that tags cannot be considered annoying behavior to the rest of us. They are a kind of narcissistic doodle that disrupt the aesthetics of others, my own included. In my opinion, you take up too much city space for too small a reason if you have to put your signature on all the walls you pass. You are welcome to put your signature on your own things, but not on others’. Whereas graffiti and pieces can be beautiful and generous contributions to the surroundings, random tags are simply personal markings made with no effort—and with no other purpose than simple self-promotion. They challenge both my aesthetics and my right to be in public, and this agitates me. That tags also provoke me is not a coincidence. Because they are, as ego-manifestations, a challenge of my place in a given space. In areas with gang activity they are also clear territorial markings that signal to me that I am now entering a space where other people rule and where I can therefore no longer count upon the rules and laws that I normally live by. Other studies suggest that these markings bring other forms of disorder with them. In an English study of 999 elderly people aged 65 and over, people reported that the presence of tags and graffiti in their neighborhood had a negative impact on their perceived health condition and general state of well-being.8 However, areas affected by graffiti are also often socially and economically disadvantaged areas, so is it these living conditions or the graffiti that affect health? That the elderly citizens did not at all care for graffiti was very clear, however. In a well-executed experiment by Keizer, Lindenberg, and Steg published in Science, 2008, we see a stronger foundation for the conditions of cause and effect. The researchers studied the effect of graffiti on people’s behavior in natural urban environments through naturalistic experiments. In one of the experiments, they put a clearly visible “Graffiti prohibited” sign in a side street at the center of the city Groningen in Holland. They kept the walls clear of graffiti and then observed, over a period of time, how many people littered in this street. Next, they heavily painted the walls with tags so that there was now, with the “Graffiti prohibited” sign still visible, an obvious violation of norms. The number of people who littered in this street now significantly increased. In another thought-provoking experiment, they let an addressed envelope with a stamp on it and a 5-euro note visibly inside it stick out of a postbox and proceeded to investigate whether passers-by would push the envelope into the postbox or steal it. If the postbox was heavily painted with tags, a significantly higher number of passers-by stole the envelope than when the envelope protruded from a clean postbox. In short, disorderly conduct and violation of norms spreads. When we see that others are violating the norms, we become more inclined to break rules and violate norms ourselves, and the presence of tags more than doubles the number of people who either litter or steal, according to this study.

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Within the social sciences, we have long had the assumption that things are as just described. When New York instituted a “zero tolerance” policy to signs of disorder in the city such as graffiti, garbage, broken glass, decay, and clutter under mayor R.  W. Giuliani, the crime rate drastically dropped. The studies of Keizer and colleagues give empirical evidence for the correlation between graffiti and crime. Graffiti activity has severe consequences for the surroundings, for the people who live in it, and for the young men and boys who practice this behavior. The main goal of the latter is to gain recognition, fame, and respect within the subculture they represent. Who can get away with making the most beautiful, most original, and most technically challenging decorations in the most visible and dangerous places, and who can put the most tags on the most unreachable walls? And you really can get famous—not just temporarily and locally, “in the hood,” but big time and globally. TAKI 183, a young Greek American who worked as a deliveryman in New York in the late 1960s and made his tag on every wall he passed, became so famous in 1971 that he was featured on the front page of the New  York Times, which featured an entire article about him. Now, almost 50 years later, here I am still writing about him. This inspired others to leave their mark and the phenomenon exploded. To young status- and attention-seeking males in an anonymous big city environment, this form of expression suddenly became a way to show their presence. Like the bowerbird that collects colorful objects for the construction of the scene of its performance, these males started putting their mark on the surroundings they frequented. An interesting question is whether these modern graffiti activities can also shed light on some of the motives that drove our ancestors to decorate their surroundings—including the caves they did not live in themselves? Are these decorations also territorial testosterone-riddled signals? Are they signals that show others that this cave is already taken by our tribe, even though we are not currently here? That this area belongs to us now and these images, which our ancestors painted, prove that we have been here for ages? We cannot know for sure, but now the idea has been presented. In the next chapter, we will take the investigation of the aesthetic impulse into the human brain. We will look at whether there is something about the brain that can explain why we—and not our closest relatives among the primates—express ourselves artistically when we are so alike in so many other areas. In short, we will delve into the brave new world of Neuroaesthetics and have a look at all the opportunities and limitations this new area of research grants us in our understanding of the aesthetic impulse.

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Art and the Brain’s Reward System BRAIN PROCESSES AND NEUROAESTHETICS

I have studied chimpanzees and bonobos for many years. Among other things, I have conducted experiments with them in the lab and monitored them for up to eight hours a day for long periods of time in order to make observations of their behavior and social interactions. There is no doubt that they are complex and intelligent creatures with many interesting skills. Chimpanzees both create and use tools. They use hammer and anvil to crack nuts. They crush leaves to make them soft and absorbent like a sponge so they can get water from hollow tree trunks and quench their thirst or clean themselves. They create spearlike sticks, which they sharpen with their teeth and use to hunt little galagos (the so-called bush babies), which are active at night and sleep in hollow tree trunks during the day. When they fish for termites, they use several tools in a functional order. First, they use a sharp, hard stick to pierce through the termite mound. Then they use a long, thin twig from which the leaves are removed and the point is made into a soft brush by chewing on it and moistening it with saliva, which attracts the termites and makes them crawl onto the twig. Several of these tools are reused and transported from one place to another.1 Thus, the chimpanzees show signs of insight into their surrounding environment. This is called natural history intelligence. They show technological intelligence in their use and making of tools, and their social intelligence is even more developed. They can deceive each other, enter into political alliances, mediate between opposing parties, make up, cooperate, share food, and perform group hunting with different roles for each participant. They can make “war” with patrols, signal, defend territory, and coordinate attacks on groups of unfamiliar conspecifics, which they attack, kill, and, in the case of the females, also sometimes kidnap and rape.2 In short, chimpanzees are very similar to humans; however, there is, as mentioned, something missing. They do not decorate themselves, the tools 107

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they use, or the surroundings they inhabit. Their possessions are entirely without ornaments and symbols, and even though they, as creatures with social hierarchies, are very occupied with status and rank, they do not embellish or promote themselves with flowers, leaves, branches, and colors from their surroundings. They do not advertise their courage, strength, and hunting prowess by decorating themselves with the skins, bones, and sculls of the animals and conspecifics they kill either. We shared a common ancestor around six million years ago. However, we have since then evolved into separate and distinct lines. Six million years of evolutionary history thus separates us from them, and during this time, our brains have grown from 400 to 500 cubic centimeters, which is the size of a normal chimpanzee brain, to the 1300 to 1400 cubic centimeters of the modern human brain, which has more than 100 billion neurons. Put briefly, we have gained more “ram” space. But perhaps it is not just the volume of the brain but also its arrangement that we must look at in order to understand the differences between the species. This is the argument of English archaeologist Steven Mithen. We will now have a closer look at his theory. Steven Mithen3 is one of the brains behind the field called cognitive archaeology in which researchers attempt to connect archaeological findings to the cognitive conditions of the human brains that have produced these findings. The sudden appearance of beautifully symmetrical and drop-shaped hand axes all over the world in the archaeological layers of earth dating back to 1.4 million years ago—replacing the simple split stone ones that our ancestors Australopithecus created—is to cognitive archaeologists evidence that a new player (Homo erectus) with a different kind of brain architecture has entered the game. Contrary to earlier players, this one is now capable of cognitively maintaining and working according to an internal mental model that is consistent throughout time and place and produces astonishingly similar artefacts, whereas Australopithecus simply produced objects adapted to the shape of the material. When we compare the weapons, tools, and culture products that our own ice age ancestors produced—and which tribal people still produce to this day—to that of chimpanzees, we notice three substantial differences. Humans produce 1. Multi-component tools (the axe is put on a shaft or bone and the hook is placed on a line and rod to make a fishing pole). 2. Special tools (the tip of the arrow or spear is shaped according to whether the purpose of it is hunting birds, small mammals, or big game). 3. Art and decoration, and they embellish themselves and their possessions with social symbols and ornaments. None of these is found among chimpanzees.

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The prerequisite for creating such items is the free exchange of information between the different stores of knowledge, or “intelligences,” as Mithen puts it. If you can combine your natural history intelligence—and thus your knowledge of the behavioral pattern of the prey and of the thickness of a reindeer’s skin and coat compared to that of a mammoth, seal, or bird—with the skill and knowledge stored in the technological intelligence, then you can create traps, multicomponent tools, and special weapons made specifically for the different challenges you face in hunting. With the free exchange of knowledge between our social intelligence and our natural history and technological intelligence, it becomes possible and also meaningful to decorate ourselves and the tools we use with social symbols. Symbols that signal key information about ownership, tribal membership, sense of self, status, courage, skills, personal care and fitness to our surroundings. Chimpanzees do not have this ability, and to Mithen this is evidence that there are still cognitive partitions between the different intelligence areas of the brain. Chimpanzees still mostly have an instinctive psyche and are therefore not able to have free exchange between the different domains of knowledge in the brain. The knowledge and skill of one domain is not necessarily transferable to another. Humans, however, do possess this ability today. But it took us a long time to acquire that ability.

The Brain: A Functionally Integrated System For millions of years, seemingly nothing happened in our evolutionary line in terms of cultural and technological development. We did not produce multicomponent tools, no special tools, and no art. Basically nothing happened from the invention of the drop-shaped hand axe 1.4  million years ago to the beginning of the cultural revolution initiated by our species around 40,000 to 60,000 years ago (described in Chapter 2). The climate changed enormously in this time period. This meant that the landscapes and prey species changed. Humans lived in ice-covered tundra interspersed by dense forest, but we still used the same old stone toolbox. We had not yet begun to work with bone, special weapons, or ornaments. A cognitive barrier seemingly obstructed the transfer of knowledge from one domain to another, and thus the experience of the natural history did not affect the technology we produced. Our social intelligence did not affect our technology either. And then it suddenly changed. Over the span of only a few millennia, more innovative creations were produced than during the previous six million years combined, and to Mithen this fact is evidence that we are now finally seeing creators who possess a modern brain architecture, where there is no barrier between the different domains of knowledge. The human brain has now become a functionally integrated and cohesive system, which can combine the

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different forms of knowledge from each domain and calculate how the experience from one domain may be put to use in another. The brain still consists of modules and brain programming that constitute specialized knowledge and experience areas produced by evolution. This means that specific neuronal circuits and areas of the brain are specialized in processing specific input and performing specific tasks. However, there is now free exchange between these domains and the modules work together in functional networks that process the input of the brain in parallel processes. Improved cognitive processes in the new layers of the brain (the neocortex and, in particular, the frontal lobes) also means that we are conscious of these processes to a much higher extent than chimpanzees for instance. We have the ability to consider, and thus also to control and organize, these processes rather than simply being subjected to them. Like all other living creatures, we are constituted bottom-up, so to speak, and equipped with a range of innate brain modules and programming. Furthermore, we are organized top to bottom, something that is uniquely human, and we have the ability, through advanced brain processes in the neocortex, via self-awareness and strength of will, to organize and thus control this basic programming to some extent. This happens, for instance, when a child who has acquired an injury stops the spontaneous reflex to cry and does not start crying until it is within sight and earshot of someone who can offer comfort. It happens when a monk or a nun chooses a life of celibacy or dies for their faith. It happens when a mountain climber suppresses the basic need for warmth, food, and oxygen in order to climb Mount Everest, or when a man forces his gaze away from a tempting female cleavage to keep eye contact. And it happens when an individual undergoes painful body modification to conform to an inner aesthetic idea.4

Neuroaesthetics There is currently an increased focus on brain processing. The brain is the new black and all words beginning with neuro- are awarded particular scientific and funding attention. Consequently, the field of aesthetics now also has an area of research known as neuroaesthetics, so named by neurobiologist Semir Zeki in 1999, which deals with the scientific study of the neural basis of art. There can be no doubt that the brain is of vital importance to how we perceive the world. We can only perceive what we have the sensory receptors to perceive (and the brain programming to process). As we saw in Chapter 4, only a minimal part of the electromagnetic radiation that surrounds us is perceptible to us. What is above 700 or below 400 nanometers, we simply cannot see because our neurons do not fire outside of this spectrum. At the level of each individual neuron, the brain thus functions as a procrustean bed. This term was

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named after the mythological thief Procrustes, who stretched out those who were too short—and amputated those who were too long—to lie in his bed. In much the same way, the brain adjusts everything according to its already established tables and programming, and thus it forces reality into fixed shapes. The brain is also, as we saw in Chapter 1, built to primarily react to new and unexpected stimuli, as well as to ignore familiar and repetitive stimuli. This programming causes not only our neophile and stimulation-seeking behavior, but also aesthetic variation, and thus the changing fashion in body ornamentation and home decoration, which we will look at in the next chapter. The brain is also synthesizing. It seeks connection, meaning, and form. Even in places where there is none. And it actively attempts to construct coherent narratives and models of reality on the basis of the received sensory data. Last, but not least, the brain rewards itself with endorphins and other opiumlike chemicals when we engage in important adaptive activities. Neuroaesthetics has shed light on the latter in particular. Animal and human studies have shown that the transmitter substance dopamine—and a certain brain circuit that includes neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex, the ventral striatum, and the nucleus acumens—is part of a special reward circuit (Figure 7.1). This circuit is activated when we are presented with

VTA SNC

FIGURE 7.1. The brain’s reward centers. Overview of the most important reward structures in the human brain. Dopamine neurons are located in the structures of the midbrain, Substantia nigra (SNC), and the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Their axons are connected to striatum (nucleus caudate putamen and the ventral striatum, including nucleus accumbens) and the dorsal and ventral prefrontal cortex.

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particularly attractive stimuli related to the necessities of life such as food or sex. However, the interesting thing is that this same reward circuit is also activated when we are presented with objects of art that we consider beautiful.5 Put briefly, receiving aesthetic impressions is a reward in itself. These perceptions are handled by the same brain processes that deal with the presentation of stimuli related to food, sex, and beautiful faces and bodies, which have obvious survival value. In the 1950s, electrodes where implanted into these areas of the brain in lab rats, and the rats were then given the opportunity to self-stimulate their reward circuit by pressing a small lever. The rats would press the lever more than ten times a minute. Neither food nor sex motivated them to the same degree as the lever, and given the choice between food or brain stimulation, they preferred to starve and be thirsty rather than going without the direct stimulation of the reward circuit. The animals never grew tired of this stimulation and would continue ceaselessly. The stimulation of this reward circuit is accompanied by a strong urge to continue in humans as well (Berridge, 2003). We are powerfully motivated to seek out the things in our world that activate this circuit in us, and it is therefore particularly interesting that aesthetic impressions have now also found their way onto the list of known reward circuit triggers. Neuroaesthetics offers us a pivotal argument for the key function of the aesthetic impulse in human lives. For why reward a perception or an activity that is evolutionarily entirely useless and worthless in relation to human existence? Certain findings of neuroaesthetics are thus deeply relevant and interesting. Other neuroaesthetic studies are less useful when we are interested, as we are here, in the why of aesthetic behavior rather than the how. That experiences— including aesthetic experiences—are rooted in the brain and neurons is obvious. What is sometimes less obvious is how our knowledge of this connection can contribute to the insight into the aesthetic process as such—or to the meaning, value, and evolutionary functionality of aesthetic behavior. For example, Vartanian and Goel show, in a study from 2004, that figurative paintings produce more activity within certain areas of the brain (the occipital poles, precuneus area, and the posterior middle temporal gyrus) than abstract paintings. But what can we do with this knowledge? Knowledge of the brain’s processes holds value in itself, of course, to neuro nerds but not necessarily to art nerds. Some aesthetics researchers belonging to the humanistic school of thought are skeptical of, or even mystified by, the usefulness of neuroaesthetic research. Alva Noë6 pointedly showed the doubt of this group of researchers when he said: “What is striking about neuroaesthetics is not so much the fact that it has failed to produce interesting and surprising results about art, but rather the fact that no one—not the scientists, and not the artist and art historians—seem to have minded, or even noticed.”

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Perhaps it is possible to show which areas of the brain are activated when test subjects listen to Mozart. But does this grant us a better understanding of the distinctive character of this music or of the nature of music in general? That is what these critics wonder. Researchers attempt to locate outlined areas and circuits of the brain, connected to certain behaviors and experiences. However, this is not entirely unproblematic when we are dealing with a functionally integrated system, which is affected by myriad situational moods and variables that go beyond the study of experimental stimuli, which is also why these studies often produce inconsistent results. That being said, neuroaesthetic research is a field in rapid growth, and only the future will tell if this approach is fruitful and meaningful or just a market bubble—an area of research with a forced increased interest and value, which will burst just like the housing and financial bubbles. For now, I think the aesthetic researchers of the humanities should give the field the benefit of the doubt, and in the following chapters we will draw on interesting neuroaesthetic studies. However, there is so far nothing that suggests that a defined art module exists in the brain. Our perception of faces and places has its own visual circuits in the brain. But our perception of artworks does not. The brain responds to aesthetic objects through the same brain structures it uses for the perception of common, everyday objects and the same reward circuit it uses when we enjoy sex or food.7 Of course, our brains are significant to the aesthetic impulse. But rather than employ defined and specialized modules and brain circuits, it is, in my opinion, more suitable to understand aesthetic behavior as having root in the collective biological, psychological, and neurological organization of the human species. And we understand this organization as a consequence of the evolutionary challenges we humans have faced in our evolutionary history. As we have seen, humans are 1. Highly stimulation-seeking animals. 2. Social-hierarchic creatures, that establish pecking orders, and compete with conspecifics for resources. 3. Symbolic and narrative animals who seek connection, meaning, and form and who construct models of reality and life stories. Nothing about the aesthetic impulse makes sense without considering these species characteristics. Furthermore, these motivating forces are tied to the evolutionary history of the brain and its different layers:  from the reptilian brain’s regulation of the basic activity levels of the organism; to the mammalian brains limbic regulation of our sexual, social, hierarchical, and emotional programming; and to the more planned, self-aware, will-controlled, symbolic, and meaning-seeking processes of the neocortex and the frontal lobes. Through

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these layers, we go from animal to human animal with complex social lives, selfawareness, and symbolic aesthetic behavioral patterns. We will now continue with the latter. You see, humans do not just decorate themselves and their surroundings or fill the world with song, music, and dance. They also spend time on a number of distinctive symbolic narrative actions where the theme of being human is dealt with through narrative and dramatic staging. In the following chapter we will now have a look at this side of the aesthetic impulse, which no other creature practices. Why do we spend time and resources on telling each other stories and on dramatizing human life and common life experiences? What themes are dealt with, and what function do these symbolic universes have to our evolution and survival as individuals and as a species?

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Fiction and Narrative THE FUNCTION OF SYMBOLIC AESTHETICS

As we saw in the previous chapter, the brain seeks form, meaning, and connection, and as a consequence, we humans spontaneously have a reading, interpreting, and organizing relationship with the sensory perceptions we receive. We simply cannot help but spontaneously construct a narrative world of stories that arrange, connect, and fill our world of different sensory perceptions with meaning. Humans live in narratives. It is as natural for humans to spin stories about who we are, why we are here, what the meaning of life is, what happens when we die, and why we simply must have that car, that house, or those sunglasses rather than all the other attractive items in the world of things, as it is for spiders to spin webs. Everything is subjected to our narrative tendencies. Even meaningless events—or the random movements of geometric objects—are put in order, connected, and given meaning—as one of the classic psychological experiments has shown us. In 1940, psychologists Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel presented their test subjects with a short minute-long cartoon. In this cartoon, a circle, a large triangle, and a small triangle move about in a random set of movements without meaning or purpose (Figure 8.1). The test subjects were then asked to describe what they had seen. For example, they could choose to describe the movements of the shapes in a prosaic reporting language:  The large triangle is first within and then without the rectangle. The small triangle moves in parallel to the circle. The two triangles bump together, and so on. However, hardly any of the test subjects did this. Instead, they produced spontaneous, complex, meaningful narratives with story and plot in which the shapes are ascribed gender, mood, and human motivation. And thus the aforementioned series of movements become, for example, a story of how the two male triangles desire the same female circle, who prefers the smaller triangle and tries to escape the romantic advances of the large triangle.

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FIGURE 8.1.

Figure from Heider & Simmel’s short film. Can be found on YouTube.

These random movements are given meaning because of the categories and driving forces of human life. This is a natural and spontaneous impulse for us humans. It is simply very difficult for us not to attribute meaning to the movements, and you almost have to be autistic to prefer the reporting language. In the past 20 years, these kinds of test have therefore also been used to test for autism. Furthermore, not only do we naturally construct narratives about the world around us. We also use narratives for relaxation. Throughout the world, busy men and women return from the many duties of the day and immerse themselves in spoken, written, or animated fantasy worlds where the lives of fictional people unfold. In hunter-gatherer societies, stories of the adventures of ancestors, the whims of nature, and the challenges of human life are told by the fire. The drama of war and hunting is staged and everyone pays attention.1 In our society, we gather around the glow of the TV or the computer monitor or in the glow of the lamp to share the same narratives. In 1841, 6000 New Yorkers stood in line to buy the last instalment of Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop. They were very eager to find out what would happen to “little Nell.” a fictional character who they were very aware did not exist in real life, but whose life and fate they were nonetheless powerfully engaged in. The stories of Dickens had similar effects on society. As early as in Oliver Twist, he begins his lifelong critique of the English social and school systems, and only two years after he had described the conditions of children in the infamous private schools of Yorkshire, in Nicholas Nickleby, all these institutions were closed except one. To a narrative animal like humans, the fates of these fictional characters are apparently so convincingly real that we feel intense empathy and are ready to change the real world as a consequence of this immersion.

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The Narratives of Advertising and Personal Staging Today, we are still seduced by fictional characters. For example, the fictional character “Don Draper,” from the TV series Mad Men, is on the TIMES’ list of the world’s 100 most influential men. Draper is a modern tragic hero and, as the head of an advertising bureau in Manhattan, he understands that people live in narratives and that the people who control these narratives also control people’s dreams, desires, consumer habits, and, ultimately, the whole world. Turning on the commercials is to let ourselves be flooded by product narratives that compete to become part of our life narratives. We need liquids to quench our thirst and lotions to aid our dry skin. For this, we can choose from an infinite number of products from the lesser-known Panama Blue bottled water to the highly profiled brand Pepsi Max, and from the by-thebulk products of Walmart to the small packaging of L’oréal. The latter ones mentioned have an exorbitant price compared to the former. Not because they do the job better but because we, besides the product, have invested in expensive, attractive narratives that say that we can be young, cool, powerful, rich, energetic, desirable, wrinkle free, irresistible, and fighting-fit through the use of these products. We are willing to pay a substantially higher price—even a small fortune—to be associated with these narratives. Why? Because we are social, narrative creatures and because these narratives give self-confidence and status as well as enchant us with the idea that we, through the use of these products, will do better than our conspecifics in the battle for existence, and thus in the battle for jobs, friends, partners, and of course: “Because we’re worth it!” Narratives are everywhere. Cars and motorbikes may be means of transportation, but they are also part of a narrative that tells a story of freedom, beauty, strength, authority, courage, sexuality, and a thousand other things. To look into a wardrobe is to look into a closet full of narratives: The sporty, casual polo, the cool shirt, and the ripped jeans. The romantic dress, the little black dress with the plunging neckline, and the French lingerie, which is anything but practical. The elegant suit, and the discreet suit in black and grey colors perfect for work or a meeting at the bank. All the roles, dreams, and narratives we have at some point signed up for. In here, all of our different personas are on display. People go to see a therapist when their personal narratives fall apart and when it is no longer possible for them to bear and to sustain their lives within the framework of a meaningful narrative. They pay these therapists through the nose to help them find and shape their new life narratives, which will once again make it all come together, motivate them to get out of bed in the morning, and make them move on with their life projects. If therapy is a success, it was money well spent, because without cohesive narratives we are nothing but existential idlers who disperse their energy at random and have recurring motivational

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breakdowns. Neither as a society, organization, or individual do we function without cohesive and meaningful narratives.

The Perennial Themes of Existence When taking a closer look at the stories with which we entertain one another in literature, plays, films, and narratives throughout the world, it becomes clear that the themes that occupy us are astoundingly similar. There seem to be a limited number of base narratives, which we keep coming back to. Whether there are five, ten, or fifteen universal narratives depends on the level of abstraction you choose to look at, but there is not an infinite number of base narratives in this world that can capture us and strike a chord with us. Only an infinite number of variations of these same basic forms. Professor of English Literature Langdon Elsbree2 has collected stories from the different cultures of this world in an impressive study, from the best-known literature to more trivial narratives to the myths and oral stories of tribal societies. According to him, there are five recurring base narratives: 1. The establishment of home—making a home (physically as well as mentally) and creating order, structure, light, awareness, and meaning where there was previously disorder and chaos. Typical examples: Book of Genesis, Robinson Crusoe, Lord of the Flies, The Little House on the Prairie. 2. Fighting a battle—performance, exertion, overcoming, and the theme of heroic conquest. Typical examples: David and Goliath, The Iliad, Moby Dick, Don Juan (the seduction), Star Wars. 3. Going on a journey—(physically as well as mentally) themes of wanderlust, longing, restlessness, and identity. Typical examples: Book of Exodus, The Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland, Don Quixote, Kerouac: On the Road. 4. Enduring suffering—stoically enduring, accepting, and bearing pain, loss, adversity, and hardship. Typical examples: Book of Job, The Passion of Christ, The Myth of Sisyphus, Waiting for Godot, Kosinski: The Painted Bird. 5. Seeking fulfilment—achieving the ultimate purpose, reaching your goals, finding redemption, and finding peace in yourself and in existence, existentially and psychologically. Typical examples: Oedipus the King, The Divine Comedy, Macbeth, Candide, The Old Man and the Sea.

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The essence of the human condition is presented in these themes. Here, there is something very human, something key, and something eternal in form and content, and when being human is brought down to the essence as it is here, then our full attention is universal. This is what it is like to fight, to win, and to lose. This is what it is like to yearn, to lose, and to gain. This is what it is like to need, to long for, and to endure. This is what it is like to leave, to break down, and to build up. We already know this, but as these themes are made topical again and again throughout our own lives, we also want to hear new variations of these base narratives, so please tell us once again. Some might ask why the theme of love is not present. But according to Elsbree, it is. You see, it is a possible secondary theme in all of the above. Love is to find a home, to fight a battle, to start a journey, to endure suffering, and to seek accomplishment and find a home in the sense of Plato. Thus, when love does not have its own theme, it is because love, depending on the specific form, is already an integrated part of all of the aforementioned base narratives and because Elsbree has chosen a very general level of abstraction as the starting point of his analysis. If you are a romantic, however, or prefer to work with more specific and less extensive levels of analysis, you are more than welcome to add love as a theme of its own. The different universes of fiction are, of course, powerfully entertaining. They stimulate a stimulation-seeking animal that also wants diversion and excitement when it relaxes. At the same time, much seems to suggest that these products are not just entertaining but also instructive and functional, and that they, like playing, help prepare us for facing the challenges of human life.

The Function of Fiction in Human Life Our survival depends on us receiving factual and precise information about our environment. Nevertheless, most of us prefer to read a fictional novel rather than a non-fiction book or a manual, and prefer to watch films that follow fictional characters in love and war rather than a prosaic documentary about the same topics. How can this be? The products of fiction may not be factual in the technical sense, but that does not mean that they cannot be human truths and existentially relevant concentrated information from the experience of real people. A kind of existential concentrated “stock cube,” if you will, which maintains the essence of human life in staged scenes that are easier to pick up and remember than the facts of a non-fiction book, and which delivers surrogate information and experience that we can learn from and use in our own lives. In the real world, I only have this one life, but in the world of fiction I have thousands of lives. In my personal life I can either choose to have kids or not to. To stay with my partner or leave her. To fight for the girl, the job, the promotion,

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or to yield to the competition. But in the surrogate laboratory of fiction, I can try and test each of these different options and a thousand others and thus, via this experiment, gain the experience to help me in my own life. In these surrogate life scenarios I can, for example, develop some relevant fight-or-flight mechanisms and dominance and battle skills, which would be much too risky to develop in the context of real danger, much like when a child plays “tag,” “you’re it,” or practices play fighting. I can learn important information about the opposite sex. I can learn how pride can sometimes lead to evil. And I can learn how he who has everything I desire is not necessarily happy. In short, surrogate experience can give me so much more experience than I would ever have the lives to acquire. In this way, literature can maintain, simulate, and show us all that which cannot simply be described factually. Some things are so existentially complex that they cannot be expressed through a simple formula, but they can be shown through staged drama. Through language and the oral and written signal systems with which we pass on our experiences, our species has a unique opportunity to accumulate culture and store recorded insights to the benefit of future generations. We can stand on each other’s shoulders and use each other’s experience as a point of departure, and last, but not least, we can be instructed about life and existence through images, books, and films without the need for others to be there to guide us. Or as the Icelandic author Einar Màr Gudmundsson puts it in his Reflections on Narrative Art from 2012: “In narrative art, the human species holds the moments when the mind reached its highest peaks and the moments where despair was at its worst; and in this memory lies the human possibility for learning to assess their own meaning and thus learn to socialise and act in the world in a way with which we are comfortable.” Here, the literary scenarios of art function as simulation of important adaptive knowledge about resources, dangers, and the thoughts of others and thus function as cognitive maps and navigational systems. The forces that are effective in the environment as well as in the human mind are put into meaningful connections with each other. And through these simulations and models, our ability to self-regulate and understand ourselves, as well as our ability to understand and assess the behavior, goals, and motives of others, is improved.3 To cognitive evolutionary scientists like Tooby and Cosmides,4 the fictional universes of art thus aid the development, organization, and calibration of our innate brain programming. And to literary scholar Joseph Carroll,5 the primary function of literature is to supply the brain with subjectively important reality models, enabling the human motivation system to become organized and to unfold so that passions may point in the direction of the choices, roads, and goals that will most effectively lead to the main goals in life: survival and reproduction.

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As social animals, our insight into the thinking minds of others and into what fascinates, motivates, irritates, and provokes them is of crucial importance to our own success. The fictional universes of literature seem particularly well equipped with that kind of insight. In an interesting experiment, researchers showed that there was a correlation between reading literary fiction and performance in a series of empathy tests.6 In these trials, readers were more capable of discerning the state of mind and emotional mood of others based on pictures of the eye region of actors than non-readers. Kid and Castano7 have since published a highly publicized series of experimental studies in Science, which supports the aforementioned results. Test subjects who had read quality award-winning literary fiction subsequently did better in a series of empathy and “theory of mind” tests (tests that measure our ability to put ourselves in someone else’s place and understand their perspective) than test subjects who had previously read either non-fiction texts or pop culture fiction or done no reading at all before the tests. Kid and Castano’s study has some shortcomings. The literary, popular, and factual text examples used are few in number, short, and subjectively chosen by the scientists themselves to cover the abovementioned categories. The effects found are small and are not produced in all tests, and a new study conducted in 2016 by Panero and colleagues failed to replicate the results, so more tests should be carried out before making any conclusions. However, the tendencies presented above confirm a series of other studies, which indicates that literary fiction could very well help to train our abilities to understand, read other people, and put ourselves in their emotional state and particular perspective. We cannot say with certainty that reading short texts of award-winning fiction has an immediate effect on a subject’s “theory of mind” abilities, but we have grounds to believe that a lifetime of reading gradually strengthens these capacities. Recently, award-winning TV dramas such as Mad Men and The West Wing have also been included on the list of theory of mind–conducing forms of fiction. Test subjects who had watched parts of these shows subsequently performed better in a “theory of mind” test than test subjects who had watched a factual documentary about sharks as Black and Barnes showed in their study from 2015. To sum up, we can therefore state that the narrative life scenarios of fiction may have several adaptive functions, which fall into three main categories: 1. Existential functionality—fiction delivers surrogate life experience that prepares us for tasks, surprises, dangers, and possibilities of our existence. 2. Cognitive functionality—fiction maintains what is central to humans in lifelike narratives, images, and scenes that fascinate us and are easier and more pleasurable to acquire and remember than the facts

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of a non-fiction book, because we receive information in ways that are similar to the ways in which we normally experience things in real life. 3. Social functionality—stories give us insight into the motives, values, and views of other people. Thus they presumably enhance our “theory of mind” capacity as well as our sense of self. Narratives also function as a kind of cultural socialization tool that informs us of the norms, games, and rules of the social world. These advantages are clearly fitness enhancing, and this is the primary reason why the brain’s reward systems react so strongly to these aesthetic forms. The people who master these codes—authors, storytellers, and filmmakers— are very popular and, like other artists, they can convert their skills into increased status as well as better mating opportunities in the arenas of social and sexual selection. This further motivates people to take on these roles if they have the talent and opportunity to do so. Furthermore, fiction satisfies a number of basic human needs for meaning, coherence, sense of belonging, and stimulation. The latter is also of crucial importance to the internal development and variation of artistic expression, as we have seen earlier. This is something that American psychologist Colin Martindale has analyzed, among other things, in his book The Clockwork Muse from 1990.

The Development and Variation of Artistic Expression Martindale takes a radical deterministic approach to art and literary history. Artistic expression changes according to basic laws that control human behavior, and aesthetics can therefore, in his opinion, be reduced to behavioral science. As humans, we like novelty and variation, but not so much that the optimal stimulation level is exceeded, because then the world becomes chaotic and confusing. Within the world of art, the law of novelty is particularly applicable. Artists cannot just copy or repeat each other’s work. They can take inspiration and gradually vary and develop themes and techniques, but they cannot repeat. In that case it is not art but plagiarism, and we also lose interest. The law of novelty is, as shown earlier, based on the habituation mechanism: we gradually lose interest in repetitive stimuli. Habituation is simply a universal feature in all brain tissue, from sea slugs to humans, and this mechanism forces artistic expression to renew itself and vary. To Martindale, the movement toward novelty is thus as fundamental as gravity.

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There is another force at play here, which can be described as “the law of least effort”: we only do what we have to do. The habituation mechanism forces the artist to reinvent himself, and the law of least effort makes him choose the least difficult way of achieving this. This prevents an explosive increase in novelty value, so that the audience still has a chance of keeping up and finding recognizable structures to lean on. Art is obviously not produced in a cultural and historical vacuum, but for Martindale this almost seems to be the case. The social exertions that come from a cultural context is, to him, only friction that inhibits or delays the effects of novelty and habituation forces, which are the real driving forces behind artistic expression. Martindale supports these theories with concrete analyses of the shifting styles of architecture, painting, and literature and shows us the internal stimulation logic behind these changes. In close detail, he demonstrates these patterns and, for instance, shows how the metaphors of poetry become more and more abstract as a result of the law of novelty. Metaphors are found further and further away from the object they are supposed to describe. For example, in Romantic poetry, a woman’s neck is “whiter than snow,” as it is described in the poem Les Colombes by French 18th -century poet André Chénier. It is a meaningful and straightforward metaphor, but we cannot simply keep on repeating it. At the beginning of the 20th century, the poet Breton therefore declared his love, in the poem Tiki, with the following lines: “I love you across the seas. Red as the egg when it is green,” and in terms of metaphors, it probably does not get more out there than that. The comparison to the colors of the egg is not immediately meaningful, but it is new and has not been seen before and, if nothing else, it is stimulating through its mysteriousness. Once again, aesthetic expression and aesthetic micro processing are put into close connection with the nature of the human species and the human nervous system. Martindale is radical, but his merit is his renewed pointing out of the underlying meaning of the human need for stimulation to human existence and the way we choose to live. And we do not have to be reductionists, or overlook all the other elements that are also at play when art changes form and direction, in order to support the idea that the stimulation factor is key. The first time we, as a culture or as individuals, hear experimental jazz or the sonic experiments of Jimi Hendrix with his distortion and feedback, many are unable to distinguish between this eminent virtuosity and plain noise. With repetitive exposure, the structure soon becomes apparent until you can finally follow, understand, and enjoy these incredible improvisations. When we have reached that point we are also ready to take a step further as well as to move on. And when a large portion of people reaches this point, art will once again change direction and expression. This does not mean that artistic expressions

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will become increasingly incomprehensible, experimental, and transgressive. They will only do so within a given period of time. There is, as mentioned, a limit to how much novelty we can integrate meaningfully. If culture has practiced abstract painting and modernist language and form experiments for a while, it suddenly becomes interesting when some artists once again start practicing classic painting or shouting their messages in unmistakable capital letters.

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Summing Up the Aesthetic Impulse ADAPTATION, CHEESECAKE, OR . . . ?

So why do we decorate ourselves and our surroundings? Spend our time on music, song, dance, and fiction? Create art and culture? We do this because it is pleasurable, internally rewarding, and because it comes naturally to us. In short, it is a species characteristic. And we also do it because aesthetic behavior has been functional to us. Through our evolutionary history, it has helped us solve a range of the big challenges in human existence and thus brought us closer to our primary goal: survival and reproduction. As we saw in Chapters 3 and 4, the aesthetic sense has fine-tuned our attention for what is essentially healthy and good for our existence. The perception of beauty is a promise of functionality, usefulness, health, and well-being and thus a mechanism developed in order to help the members of our species to choose the right fitness-enhancing items in our surroundings. The resources we spend decorating ourselves, and on adding increased decorative value to the utility items of our surroundings, which has zero influence on their function, have also paid off. They have signaled ability, effort, care, courage, perseverance, intelligence, creativity, good genes, organismic and material resources, as well as social identity and group membership, and have thus functioned as reliable fitness indicators. Accordingly, these aesthetic exertions could also be translated into reproductive and status advantages. “Show me your items and I will tell you who you are.” Decoration is communication. Humans are signal interpreters and decorative signals, not least our body ornamentation, are possibly the first form of IT developed by our species. To put it briefly, creating aesthetics, art, and culture is human nature. However, before we move on we must take a brief theoretical pause in order to shed light on a discussion that has absorbed many researchers of aesthetics. Researches within the aesthetic field have, as shown, had a preference for 129

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expressing themselves in absolute opposition to each other and to passionately set up camp on different sides of these positions. Is aesthetic behavior rooted in surplus energy and partying or in deficiency and anxiety? Is it pleasure or need that drives us? Is aesthetic behavior an individual fitness indicator or a connecting collective force that creates coherence and group identity? And last but not least: Should aesthetic behavior be considered an adaptation in its own right, and thus an innate behavioral program of direct consequence to our survival and reproduction, which has been carried on through selection? Or should this behavior rather be considered a random by-product that may have its advantages and that stimulates our pleasure circuit, but which is ultimately a side effect of other adaptive processes? The discussion of pleasure versus need was dealt with in Chapter 1, where we found that, by including the stimulation factor, we could actually lift the apparent opposition, as the aesthetic impulse is closely connected to the stimulation level of the organism. It can therefore be awakened throughout the human excitement continuum, whether we are under-, over-, or optimally stimulated (see Figure 1.2, page 21). The opposition of individual versus collective was dealt with in Chapter 5, where we participated in a pig party with the Whagis of New Guinea and where we saw, among other things, that the apparent opposition existed because researchers took as their starting points different sides of our social-hierarchic nature. However, humans are both social group creatures and competitive animals of hierarchy who compete for resources. Consequently, we do not need to choose between these components, but instead we need to understand that the aesthetic impulse helps us solve a series of key tasks put forth by our nature of social hierarchy regarding individual marking and profiling, as well as collective coherence and group membership. But what about the adaptation/by-product opposition?

The Theory of Adaptation: Pros and Cons An adaptation is a feature that has become species typical because it has solved the recurring tasks of life met by members of a species during their evolutionary history better than other features. And this book has aimed to document that aesthetics and art are species-typical features in humans. Most of the field’s biologically and evolutionarily oriented researchers also support the theory of adaptation. Dissanayake1 and Miller2 both consider (despite their divergence of opinions) the human need for artistic expression an adaptation and thus an innate functional impulse, which has been passed on through selection because this behavior has improved our chances of survival and reproduction.

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Others, like evolutionary psychologists Tooby and Cosmides,3 literary scholar Joseph Carroll,4 and philosopher Denis Dutton5 are also supporters, and the latter even ups the ante by determining that humans are equipped by nature with an “art instinct.” A softer version of the theory of adaptation can be seen with neurologist Anjan Chatterjee,6 who does think that art has adaptive roots, but also that art has developed into the heavily varying field we see today (involving conceptual as well as unaesthetic expression)—because the original pressure of selection has now lessened as a result of our technological, scientific, and cultural breakthroughs, thus freeing us, to some degree, from the more direct pressure of the original forces of nature. The viewpoints that I  have presented in this book can, with some reservations, well be contained within the adaptation theory. As mentioned earlier, I  think that analyses must be moved from Art to the aesthetic impulse itself, as this basic behavioral impulse is the root of all our artistic life expressions. Artistic expression is too diverse and different in its expression to be meaningfully considered only one adaptation. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that each and every form of art has been adaptive in terms of a long range of the abovementioned key human life tasks: from survival and reproduction to status, individual profiling, and fitness indication to tribal identity and cohesive force. I do, however, as a behavioral psychologist, find it hard to deal with the idea of instinct as put forth by Dutton. Instincts are (a) innate, relatively fixed behavioral patterns, which are (b)  universal to all individuals within a given species, (c)  largely unaffected by subsequent experience, and which (d)  once triggered are produced automatically. For example, when a goose sees that an egg has rolled out of the nest, it has an innate retrieval instinct, which makes it stretch out its neck and roll the egg back under its body by using its beak. If, during this process, the egg is removed, the goose will still go through the motion of completing the initiated retrieval maneuver even though the egg is no longer there to retrieve. However, once triggered, this instinctive behavioral pattern must be completed to the full, because that is how fixed instinctual behavior is. The artistic behavioral patterns found in humans are simply too free, varied, and complex for it to make sense to reduce them to instinctual behavior. However, that does not mean that our need for art and aesthetic decoration cannot still be a natural impulse that is inherent to humans. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker7 does not, however, share the view of an adaptation theory. Literature and fictional universes, which we investigated in the previous chapter, can, if necessary, have adaptive value—to the extent that these elements give us essential information, but according to Pinker, artistic behavior is predominantly a by-product of other adaptive processes. In short, art exploits other, more primary urges and needs in order to stimulate

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our pleasure circuit, and thus gives us surrogate satisfaction of these needs and urges—in the same way that sugar, fat, drugs, masturbation, and pornography can work as both stimulation and substitute without enhancing our actual fitness in the real world. The brain rewards us for seeking out certain fitness-enhancing stimuli and actions by sending us feelings of urge, which motivate us to get more of the same. But as the sensation of pleasure is rewarding on its own, it sometimes also becomes the goal itself. When a rat that has electrodes implanted into its brain gets the opportunity to stimulate its own pleasure circuit by pressing a lever, it will ignore possibilities of food, drink, and sex simply to press this lever until it collapses from exhaustion. To Pinker, art is like that lever in that it can activate our sense of pleasure, which makes us engage in time-consuming aesthetic exertions such as decorating caves and possessions rather than engaging in activities of real fitness-enhancing value. In short, art seduces us by collecting, continuing, and enhancing a range of stimulating key stimuli that arouses our pleasure circuit. For example, we love strawberry cheesecake. Not because we have evolved taste for cheesecake, but because there is a perfect concentration of a range of stimuli within this food item that we are programmed to look for: fresh ripe fruit, rich smooth cream, and cool sweet tastes. To Pinker, art is like cheesecake:  an intense attempt to stimulate our pleasure circuit and thus tempt us into a kind of surrogate satisfaction, and then we spend time finding ochre, and painting our bodies with red paint, and dancing long and forcefully, rather than going directly for the opposite sex and mating. I have issues with Pinker’s point of view. First, as we saw in Chapters 4 and 5, there is substantial empirical evidence that aesthetic behavior can function as a genuine and reliable fitness indicator, which, like the peacock’s tail, indicates that we are dealing with a particularly talented and resourceful individual. An individual with whom it pays off to mix genes. Artistically gifted people also have a larger number of sexual partners than other people of the same age. You can thus draw a line from art to sex, and aesthetic exertions therefore have a real fitness-enhancing value. Finally, beautiful ornamentation—which testifies to both care, perseverance, and intelligence—causes admiration, which gives status that can in turn be turned into fitness-enhancing cooperation and mating opportunities. Second, Pinker’s metaphor is flawed, as for example Carroll8 has pointed out, however convincing it may seem. According to Pinker, we would be able to get by without most of what we call art without any real changes to human existence. Especially music is, to Pinker, entirely without relevant function. Music is pure pleasure technology, which he likens to a cocktail of recreational drugs administered through the ears in order to stimulate as many of the brain’s pleasure circuits at the same time as possible.

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However, music is a powerfully unifying force, which both mobilizes and synchronizes the pulse, behavior, and psychological emotions of a group, and this can be highly functional in the competition against other groups, as well as for strengthening the unity within the group during times of crisis. Furthermore, talented musicians and singers are very fascinating and have greatly increased mating advantages. Finally, the comparison to drugs is misleading. Drugs are disorienting and demoralizing if used habitually, and the addict becomes incapable of honoring the demands of a complex society. Music, or any other form of art, does not have these effects. On the contrary, it is more likely that people who grew up without access to music, rhythmic patterns, song, symbolic universes, complex colorful decorations, and so forth would become psychologically and emotionally crippled. Just think of the automatically rhythmic and musical exchanges of child care, where we intuitively rock the baby from side to side while humming, singing, and modulating our voice in the exchanges with the child and repeat the sounds it produces. Cheesecake is also a misleading metaphor. Rich desserts may appeal to the taste buds, but they are literally empty calories, and when we ingest them, there is no transfer of complex emotional and factual information about life and the surroundings from one mind to another. Artistic expression, on the other hand, is full of communication and a person who is robbed of such impressions, in Pinker’s artless mental universe, would likely become neurologically limited in a similar way to the limits characteristic of an autistic child born with a neurological defect. Artistic expression and behavioral patterns are, as shown, some of the means with which we cultivate, regulate, and calibrate the brain, the cognitive apparatus, and the human motivational systems. Moreover, a world without these elements would limit our ability to relate to other people, to put ourselves in each other’s place, and to respond creatively to the challenges put forth by life. Let me give you a different example. As creatures living in systems of social hierarchy, it is natural for humans to assert themselves, show off to one another, and to compete with each other,9 and we can do this in many different ways: through feats of strength, power, courage, generosity, self-sacrifice, distinctive consumption, and last, but not least, through decoration and art. Consequently, we possess a natural drive that makes us compete, and this drive can further be driven by different elements such as art. However, are all these elements merely by-products of our hierarchical primary drive, or are they natural, species-typical driving forces in their own right? I believe the latter is true, and I therefore choose to say that it is as natural for members of our species (but, interestingly, not for apes, which are also creatures with social hierarchies) to use art and other aesthetic activities as means to compete as it is for humans to compete in the first place.

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The Aesthetic Impulse and the Basic Components of the Human Species An impulse is, as we have seen, a natural, internally produced behavioral urge that does not need to be externally rewarded in order to exist, and at least five observations indicate that the aesthetic impulse is an inherent part of human nature and thus a primary impulse in its own right: 1. The aesthetic impulse is present in all known present and past human cultures regardless of time, place, and material level. 2. It occurs in our infants as an innate, pleasurable activity, which, like playing, does not need to be learned or rewarded in order to exist. 3. The brain’s reward circuit is activated when we are presented with aesthetic experiences and objects. Carrying out and stimulating the aesthetic impulse creates an inner sense of pleasure throughout our lives that makes the behavior rewarding in itself. This happens in a way that is similar to how it is pleasurable for us to carry out our innate programming for socializing, courtship, searching for and eating food, forming pair bonds and family groups, and having sex. 4. We voluntarily spend, as individuals and as a society, enormous amounts of time, effort, and resources on satisfying this impulse. 5. Useless behavior that is without value and that takes costly resources away from other useful activities is ruthlessly weeded out by selection during the evolutionary history of a species. The very presence of the aesthetic impulse is therefore evidence of its naturalness and functionality. The first telling signs of an aesthetic sense in our evolutionary history was found with the human ape of the species Australopithecus africanus, who was one day, three million years ago, drawn to powerful visual, somatosensory, and “symbolic” qualities of the Makapansgat pebble, and who picked up this strange, useless, and inedible object and took it with him and kept it. The full potential of the aesthetic impulse then blossoms like a flower as our species, Homo sapiens, saw the light of day around 2.8 million years later. This species no longer had hermetically closed cognitive barriers between the different domains of knowledge in the brain. The human brain now had a functionally integrated and coherent system that could combine the different domains of knowledge and reflect on how experience created in one domain could be put to use within another. And here, where there was free transfer of information between our social knowledge and our natural history and technological knowledge, it suddenly became both possible and meaningful to

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decorate ourselves and our utility items with social aesthetic signs that signal key information about ownership, tribal membership, status, sense of self, courage, care, and ability to our surroundings. Thus, not only the many gains of our brain but also the internal organization of these are of crucial importance to the aesthetic impulse. But there is no clearly defined art module in the brain and, rather than as defined, specialized modules and brain circuits, we must understand aesthetic behavior as being rooted in the collective biological, psychological, and neurological organization of the human species. The aesthetic impulse is rooted in the organism as a whole and is, as such, a result of the collective basic constituents and thus the neophile, stimulation-seeking, socially hierarchical, symbolic, and narrative nature of the human species. Nothing about the aesthetic impulse—not

Body ornamentation Satisfies the need for stimulation. Signals personal fitness (good genes, healthy organism, strong immune system), courage, perseverance, care creativity and intelligence. Gives status and attracts social and sexual partners

Individual functions

Signals group membership, social identity, and unifies individuals in a collective unit

Social functions

Decoration of objects and surroundings Satisfies the need for stimulation. Signals personal fitness, abilities, creativity, intelligence, care, effort, resources, and power. Gives status and attracts social and sexual partners

Signals social identity, group, class, education, status, etc., and functions as territorial market

The Aesthetic Impulse

Fiction, storytelling, and narrative Satisfies the need for stimulation, excitement, form, coherence, and meaning. Establishes surrogate life experience. Gives us cognitive maps of the world and human life. Simulates adaptive knowledge of resources and dangers. Improves sense of self

Gives insight into the minds of others (Theory of mind), what fascinates, motivates, irritates, and provokes them. Creates group identity, unifying force, continuity, and common history among the members of a tribe and between generations. FIGURE 9.1.

Artistic behaviour and talent (songs, dance, music, dram etc.) Individual functions

Satisfies the need for stimulation. Signals personal fitness. Reliable indicator of special abilities, creativity intelligence. Gives status and attracts social and sexual partners.

Social functions

Unites, brings together, coordinates, and synchronises the group on key parameters such as pulse, arousal level, behaviour, commitment, and psychological mood. Makes groups word as one unified force

The aesthetic impulse and species conditions.

136 { The Aesthetic Animal Species conditions • • •

We are neophile, stimulation-seeking animals. Carnivores and food opportunists who turns our calorie intake into activity and exploration We are creatures living in groups of social hierarchy who establish status hierarchies and compete with one another for resources We are symbolic narrative animals who seek form and meaning and construct models of reality

Existential environmental conditions • • •

We control fire, cook food, and prolong the active time of day with light Whereas the other primates use up to 50% of their day finding, eating, and digesting food, humans only use 5% This gives us more time and opportunity to create art, culture, crafts, and decoration

Neurological conditions • • • • •

Functionally integrated unified brain with free exchange of information between the different domains of knowledge Programmed for stimulation seeking and a high organismic activity level Pregrammed to react to certain key stimuli and equipped with specialised inborn alerts, tools, sensibilities, and species typical preferences Programmed to seek form, coherence, and meaning

FIGURE 9.1.

Continued.

its forms, its distribution, the diversity of aesthetic expression, or its usefulness and complex evolutionary function—makes sense, if we do not include these basic constituents. So, let us sum up. A brief schematic summary of the evolutionary functions and material conditions of the aesthetic impulse might look like this (Figure 9.1).

10 }

Opening the Doors of Aesthetics CONCLUDING REMARKS

When Hamlet, in the play of the same name, is directing a group of actors, Shakespeare has him say that the purpose of a play is “to hold . . . the mirror up to nature” (act 3, scene 2) and thus reflect the existing human life and passions. During Romanticism, around 200 years later, the lamp replaces the mirror as a metaphor. The lamp does not mirror the world, it shines a light upon it and the stronger it burns the further the light reaches. The stronger the art, the stronger the light and the stronger the light, the stronger the insight into existence. Mirror or light. Art is a treasure chamber of beauty, human knowledge, and insight, and if you are still with me, dear reader, then it is because you, like me, have had some of your biggest experiences through art and aesthetics and therefore wish to understand why this force—this heightened aesthetic value— captivates, engages, and moves us the way it does. The first time I  saw the light refracted through a rococo vase made from Venetian glass, a deep red color with gold decoration, which was standing by the window at my grandmother’s house, I found it so beautiful that I simply had to touch the vase. The vase itself was probably a piece of tourist kitsch, but for me, a 5-year-old boy, it was marvelous. An enchanted treasure. The first time I heard the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, or Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The first time I got a psychedelic shirt with purple, violet, pink, and crimson fractals. The first time I read poems by Charles Baudelaire and Sylvia Plath. The first time I saw pictures by William Turner and Andy Warhol, and the first time I saw films by David Lynch and Peter Greenaway, or the first time I visited Mies van der Rohe’s architectural gem, the Villa Tugendhat in Brno. The first time I got a tattoo, etc., etc. The list of aesthetic highpoints, where time stood still and a new world opened up, is endless, and everyone has his or her own personal lists. 139

140 { The Aesthetic Animal

Art and Aesthetics Today, art is many things, sometimes also things that seemingly fall out of the aesthetic category. In 1917, Marcel Duchamp exhibited an ordinary urinal, which he had signed. In the 1960s, Piero Manzoni put his own feces into tins. The label reads (in Italian, French, German, and English): “Artist’s shit. Contents 30 g, freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.” And in 2007, one such tin was sold for 124,000 Euros at an auction in Sotheby. In 1998, female English artist Tracy Emin exhibited her undone bed, complete with used condoms, bloody underwear, and sex fluids, and this piece reached a price of over 2.5 million pounds in 2014 when it was sold by auction house Christies. “Are these pieces even art?” some might ask. It is true that this form of provocative and conceptual art completely eliminates the craft and replaces it with an idea. This is the intellectual playing mind games, and many of these games are only meant for a small circle of initiated people. As previously mentioned, it is not our goal, here, to decide what is great art and what is not, but as things stand today, the aforementioned pieces fall into the category of art. I will not deny that there can be conceptual art that falls entirely outside the aesthetic category, but there is not much of it, and it does not apply to the pieces mentioned, which are both sensuous and thoughtprovoking. These artworks are simple power objects and with their references to basic negative key stimuli such as urine, feces, sweat, blood, semen, and filth, they are guaranteed our attention. They cause fascination mixed with disgust. They are “gross” and “unaesthetic,” but this is exactly what makes them belong to the aesthetic category. Everything beautiful is aesthetic, but not everything aesthetic is beautiful, as we have seen in Chapter 4. The disgust and aversion part of our environmental scans are, as shown, just as key stimuli as the aesthetically pleasing ones. Consequently, we also find innate tools and sensibilities in this area, which art can play with. Furthermore, the human need for stimulation, in interaction with factors such as the law of novelty and the habituation mechanism, can explain to us why it sometimes becomes necessary for art to go that far in order to capture our attention and pique our interest. Other works of art have a clear consensus surrounding them. In their case, no one questions whether what we are dealing with is art.

Classic Aesthetics, Neuroaesthetics, and Behavioral Psychology If you have ever been to the Louvre, you have probably stood in front of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, as you do when you are in these parts, and Mona Lisa is great art—or so we have been taught. Yet you may have thought it peculiar that

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a small and dark portrait of a not particularly attractive woman has caused so much furor in art history. Moreover, what is the deal with all the talk about her “mysterious smile”? Let me offer two different answers to the riddle of this smile, and you can decide which one you agree with the most. Neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone from Harvard University has analyzed the painting and, from the viewpoint of neuroaesthetics, Mona Lisa’s smile is simply the result of our visual system. The visual system is sensitive to different visual frequencies. When we focus on something and see the details, then we practice high-frequency vision. Our peripheral vision (the information flowing outside of the focused line of sight) is therefore on low frequency vision, which is sensitive to more broad visual impressions such as changes in the light and shadow. You might say that at high frequency, we see the tree and at low frequency we see the forest. If we take the painting of Mona Lisa and filter it so we receive either only high-frequency visual impressions or low-frequency impressions, something interesting happens. The smile is only visible in the low-frequency exposure, but not in the high-frequency focus. Thus, if we look directly at Mona Lisa’s mouth, she is not smiling, but if we then focus on her eyes or the backdrop of the painting (so that the mouth becomes part of our low-frequency visual impressions), then she looks like she is smiling, and it is these spontaneous shifts in focus, and thus in high- and low-frequency impressions, that is the answer to this riddle according to Livingstone.1 The reader can replicate the experiment by looking at the picture here in the book. And something definitely happens according to where you place your focus (Figure 10.1). According to English literary scholar and art critic Walter Pater, we need to look deeper into the soul in order to understand why the portrait of Mona Lisa fascinates people so much. In his theory, you can forget about high- or lowfrequency visual impressions. As Pater is also a big artist of style, we should probably let him take the lead here in his own words, from his impressive 1893 art history analysis of the artwork. He says the following about the lovely Mona: Hers is the head upon which all “the ends of the world are come,” and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan

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FIGURE 10.1.

Mona Lisa.

Source: Reproduction of painting Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and light graphic effect © Jozef Klopacka/ Dreamstime.com

world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands.2 Both interpretations are interesting, and they both have merit and are thus both legitimate. It is likely a question of taste as to which interpretation you most agree with. However, I  would like to give my personal opinion. I, too, have stood indifferent and bored in front of the portrait of Mona Lisa. It was Pater’s text, that opened my eyes to the qualities of the painting, and this is what the art critics, educated in the humanities, do better than anyone else does.

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Livingstone’s analysis gives me a cognitive understanding of a visual effect that may affect my perception of the portrait, but it does not bring me closer, per se, to the person Mona Lisa was. The portrait is still a slightly dull and dark rendering of a not particularly attractive woman. With Pater’s analysis, this changes completely. Mrs. Lisa is still not beautiful, but she is now suddenly an interesting woman and, above all, a person who I can relate to across a time span of centuries. A living human being of flesh and blood. Before I read Pater, she was a distant and inscrutable historic female figure of limited beauty. After Pater she is the embodiment of the feminine riddle, where the feminine features occur in a unique combination of the earthly, the sensual, and the divine. With the mysterious smile of Mona Lisa, the soul of the modern human was born and captured in a portrait in which the Madonna and the whore, the divine and the secular are united in a new synthesis. We are now past the iconic, anonymous, and idealized character drawings of the Middle Ages and entering a modern, psychological phase of portrait painting. Personally, I am a great user of classic humanist art and aesthetics analyses and of art- and literary history works, and in terms of style I  would rather read Walter Pater’s The Renaissance—Studies in Art and Poetry from 1893 than practically any neuroaesthetic article. However, both are legitimate. The grand humanist art criticism can be art in its own right. It polishes the mirror and points the light of the lamp at what is relevant and does not just open up the piece but also the world to us. The focus of neuroaesthetics is entirely different, and its chances of inspiring and enriching our personal lives, as human beings, are likely more limited. However, this area also intermittently grants us relevant and interesting information. Consequently, I  have no issues with the classic aesthetic research of the humanities, and neither do I see why this tradition should feel threatened by a neuroaesthetic or behavioral scientific approach. The aim is not to move aesthetics from the humanities and into behavioral and other sciences. On the contrary, the aesthetic field is a house with many doors and you will need several keys to open them. In addition, more keys and different keys than the ones used in this book. Each approach has its limitations. The operational thinking that I have applied in this book is invitingly commonsensical and can be taken too far, which some would perhaps argue has already happened in some parts of this book. It is also true that I—apart from the examples in Chapter 6—do not spend a substantial amount of time defining what rules culture establishes. This is due, in part, to an editorial choice about following as straight a line as possible in an interdisciplinary field, which is literally teeming with material and perspectives. However, it is also due to a certain paradigmatic consequence on my part, as I  inherently profess to the idea that culture is also nature for us humans, and that the cultural niches we create work by influencing the selective pressures we are exposed to. Culture therefore does not eliminate or undo the basic mechanisms of selection, but simply moves them to a different place and into culturally constructed arenas.

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In every moment of its existence, each culture has arisen, endured, and been maintained through the activities of human nature, and we, in turn, also become shaped by the cultural creations we produce.3 For example, culture did not just suddenly arrive because we at some point in time developed a large brain capacity. The large brain is just as much a product of culture as it is the cause of culture. Moreover, it was propelled forward because of the challenges our smaller-brained ancestors faced when they embarked upon the cultural road to the goals of survival around 4 to 5 million years ago. As the complexity of cultural and social forms increased, the pressure for larger and more abstract brains also increased, and when these appeared, the cultural and social forms evolved even further, and so on and so forth. Mankind was therefore not only the creator of cultural forms such as the controlled use of fire, cooked food, language, family, religion, the division of labor according to gender and social status, or artistic expressions, but just as much was the product of these cultural forms in a dialectic evolutionary process, and this perspective could have been explored and exemplified further than there was room for here. Instead, the perspective of behavior was prioritized. However, aesthetics and art are also behavior. They are something our species does, and that is why behavioral sciences were prioritized. Not least because we, as we are here, are trying to delineate the underlying fundamental motives for why we even create art and spend time and resources on aesthetic activities in the first place. Furthermore, I will also be so bold as to say that with behavioral and evolutionary psychology as tools, we can really shine an extensive and important light on the big Why? of art. If we are to understand the unique human urge to decorate ourselves and our surroundings, we must explore the nature and evolutionary history of the human species. We must explore the psychological engine room and understand our innate programming and sensibilities. We must understand our basic motives and driving forces. There, we will not only find the key to the big Why, but also to some of the aesthetic micro processes of art:  the themes and key stimuli, the colors, shapes, patterns, motifs, and textures that particularly fascinate and appeal to us as human animals—and the why and the when of art’s changes of expression, form, and direction. Aesthetics is more and other than superficiality and cheesecake. More than “frippery” and empty calories. The aesthetic impulse is an integrated part of our nature. It is a fundamental driving force in all our existence and effort, and it is thus an integral and defining part of what makes us human. Of what makes us survive, thrive, and reproduce with quality. This impulse is so fundamental to human life that the world would be unrecognizable to us without it. It would be an ice desert, literally: Barren, cold, and without beauty and magic. A mundane nature in which we may be able to survive, but a poor habitat where we would never thrive. For man is—the aesthetic animal.

NOTES Introduction 1. Dissanayake, 2013. 2. Cox, 2005. 3. Dissanayake, 1999. 4. Høgh-Olesen, 1999; Dissanayake, 2013; Morris, 2013. 5. Fechner, 1876; Berlyne, 1971; Arnheim, 1974; Martindale, 1990. 6. Zuckerman, 2007; Cleridou & Furnham, 2014. 7. Freud, 1915, 1920. 8. Anderson, Hildreth, & Howland, 2015.

Chapter 1 1. Day et al., 2003. 2. Organ et al., 2011. 3. Hebb, 1955; Berlyne, 1960; Høgh-Olesen, 2014. 4. Desmond Morris, 2013. 5. Nietzsche, 1883–1888/1968. 6. Wilson og kolleger, 2014. 7. Muensterberger, 1971; Dissanayake, 2007, 2013. 8. Mehr & Krasnow, 2017. 9. Csikszentmihalyi, 2005.

Chapter 2 1. Joordens et al., 2015. 2. Bednarik, 2003. 3. Rodriguez-Vidal et al., 2014; Balter, 2010; Chatterjee, 2014. 4. Aubert et al., 2014. 5. Wamberg, 2009. 6. Breuil, 1952. 7. Leakey, 1995. 8. Leroi-Gourhan, 1968. 9. David Lewis-Williams, 1988, 2002. 10. Klûver, 1942; Horowitz, 1975. 11. Guthrie, 2005. 12. Diamond, 2006. 13. Guthrie, 2005. 14. Alter-Muri & Vazzano, 2014.

147

148 { Notes 15. Anastasia & Foley, 1936. 16. Conard, Malina, & Mûnzel, 2009. 17. Bahn & Vertut, 1988. 18. Lewis-Williams, 2002.

Chapter 3 1. Petrie & Halliday, 1994. 2. Rodd, Hughes, Gether, & Baril, 2002. 3. Endler & Day, 2006. 4. Borgia, 1986. 5. Borgia, 1986; Miller, 2001. 6. Marty et al; 2009, Bergman, Ho, & Beehner, 2009. 7. Pfaff, Zanette, MacDougall-Shackleton, & MacDougall-Shackleton, 2007. 8. Boysen, Berntson, & Prentice, 1987; Morris, 2013. 9. Westergaard & Suomi, 1997.

Chapter 4 1. Thornhill, 2003. 2. Cunningham et al., 1995. 3. Slater et al., 1998. 4. Langlois, Roggman, & Rieser-Danner, 1990. 5. Chatterjee, 2010. 6. Penton-Voak et al., 1999; Grammer et al., 2003. 7. Mueller & Mazur, 1997. 8. Keating, Mazur, & Segal, 1981. 9. Chatterjee, 2014. 10. Gangestad, Bennet, & Thornhill, 2001. 11. Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999. 12. Møller, Soler, & Thornhill, 1995. 13. Chatterjee, 2014. 14. Singh, 1993, 1995; Singh & Luis, 1995; Marlowe, Apicella, & Reed, 2005. 15. Buss, 2003. 16. Guthrie, 2005. 17. Voland & Grammer, 2003; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986. 18. Chatterjee, 2014. 19. Mather, 2014. 20. Fehrman & Fehrman, 2004. 21. Itten, 1995. 22. Gueguen et al., 2012. 23. Elliot & Niesta, 2008; Kayser, Elliot, & Feltman, 2010. 24. Fehrman & Fehrman, 2004. 25. Fehrman & Fehrman, 2004. 26. Berlyne, 1971. 27. Koffka, 1935. 28. Coss, 2003.

Notes } 149 29. Coss, 2003. 30. Balling & Falk, 1982. 31. Orians & Heerwagen, 1992. 32. Mather, 2014. 33. Lohr & Pearson-Mims, 2006. 34. Ulrich, 1995; Orians, 2001. 35. Caspari, 2009. 36. Orians, 2001. 37. Ôhman, Flygt, & Esteves, 2001. 38. Clasen, 2012. 39. Freud, 1928; Bullough, 1995. 40. Akins, 2004. 41. Guthrie, 2005. 42. Ramachandran & Blakeslee, 1999. 43. Dissanayake, 1999.

Chapter 5 1. Ebin, 1979; Robinson, 1998. 2. Ebin, 1979. 3. Kuhn & Stiner, 2007. 4. Carmen, Guitar, & Dillon, 2012. 5. Koziel, Kretschmer, & Pawlowski, 2010. 6. Miller, 1999, 2001. 7. Trivers, 1972. 8. Miller, 1999. 9. Clark & Hatfield, 1989; Hald & Høgh-Olesen, 2010. 10. Crocchiola, 2014. 11. Crocchiola, 2014. 12. Nettle & Clegg, 2006. 13. Haselton & Miller, 2006. 14. Mosing et al., 2015. 15. Dissanayake, 1999. 16. Loersch & Arbuckle, 2013. 17. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1988; Zentner & Eerola, 2010. 18. Fritz et al., 2009; Sievers et al., 2012. 19. O´hanlon, 1989. 20. Vale & Juno, 1989. 21. Atik & Yildrim, 2014. 22. Carmen, Guitar, & Dillon, 2012; Atik & Yildrim, 2014. 23. Dissanayake, 1999. 24. Geoge Lukacs, 1920. 25. Vale & Juno, 1989. 26. Swami et al., 2012; Gueguen, 2012. 27. Swami et al., 2012; Koch et al., 2007. 28. Koziel, Kretschmer, & Pawlowski, 2010.

150 { Notes

Chapter 6 1. Mithen, 2003. 2. Glavenu, 2013. 3. Fischer, 1961, 1971. 4. Robbins, 1971. 5. Halsey & Young, 2006; Pani & Sagliaschi, 2009. 6. Buss, 2008. 7. Pani & Sagliaschi, 2009. 8. Bowling et al., 2006.

Chapter 7 1. See Høgh-Olesen, 2004, 2010 for overview. 2. De Waal, 1982; Boesch, 2001, 2003; Byrnit & Høgh-Olesen, 2015. 3. Mithen, 1998. 4. Høgh-Olesen, 2010. 5. Brown et al., 2011. 6. Alva Noë, 2011. 7. Bowling et al., 2006.

Chapter 8 1. Blurton Jones, & Konner, 1976. 2. Elsbree, 1982. 3. Dissanayake, 2007; Mar & Oatley, 2008; Dutton, 2009. 4. Tooby & Cosmides, 2001. 5. Carroll, 2005. 6. Mar, Oatley, & Peterson, 2009. 7. Kid & Castano, 2013.

Chapter 9 1. Dissanayake, 1999, 2007. 2. Miller, 1999. 3. Tooby & Cosmides, 2001. 4. Carroll, 2005. 5. Dutton, 2009. 6. Chatterjee, 2014. 7. Pinker, 1997. 8. Carroll, 1998. 9. Anderson et al., 2015.

Chapter 10 1. Livingstone, 2000. 2. Pater, 1924, 129–130. 3. Katzenelson, 1989.

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INDEX Page references to figures are indicated by f’s. A Abri de Cap Blanc frieze, 38 adaptation theory, 130–33 artistic behavior, 11 music and, 132–33 pleasure circuit and, 131–32 adornment, 1, 5. See also decoration; ornaments advertising body ornamentation as personal advertising, 82–85 narratives as, 119 aesthetic animal, defined, 3 aesthetic behavior. See also aesthetic impulse; artistic behavior adornment, 1, 5 as fitness indicator, 7, 132 as response to overstimulation, 16, 19–20 as response to understimulation, 16, 19–20 aesthetic impulse, 1 adaptation theory, 130–33 adornment, 1, 5 body aesthetics, 2–3 defined, 7 evolutionary functions of, 134–36 general discussion, 129–30 human characteristics and, 113–14 as inherent part of human nature, 134–36 spontaneous, 90 aesthetics. See also art aesthetic effects, 6 defined, 12 alpha stimuli, 70–71 animal kingdom, aesthetics in. See also names of specific animals birds, 44–49 birds of paradise, 45–46 bowerbirds, 43, 47–48 canaries, 48 evolution of beauty, 45 honest signals, 45 Japanese crane, 48 lyrebird, 48 natural selection, 44–45 overview, 44

peacocks, 44–45 peahens, 45 sensory exploitation theory, 46 sexual selection, 44, 45–47 song sparrows, 48–49 courtship rituals, 49 guppies, 46 overview, 43 primates, 49–51 baboons, 49 bonobos, 50–51 capuchin monkeys, 51 chimpanzees, 49–51 gorillas, 50–51 key stimuli during mating, 49 mandrills, 49 overview, 49 Tungara frogs, 46 “animal well-being”, 18 anthropological perspective, of artistic behavior, 5 apes bonobos, 59, 71, 107 chimpanzees, 49–51, 59, 71, 107–9 gorillas, 50–51, 59, 71 OSL, 17 aphrodisiac, 60, 71 art. See also artistic behavior defined, 12 deterministic approach to, 124–25 existential uncertainty theory and, 19–20 law of least effort, 125 law of novelty, 124 optimal stimulation level and, 21f, surplus energy theory and, 18 art for the sake of art (art pour l’art), 27 artistic behavior adaptation theory, 11 anthropological perspective of, 5 functions of, 5 hormones and, 84 pleasure and, 5 sociocultural perspective of, 5 theological perspective of, 5 art magique (magical art), 28

159

160 { Index art pour l’art (art for the sake of art), 27 Asian folk art, 98 Athey, Rob, 91 Australian Aborigines, 3 Australopithecus, 108 Australopithecus africanus, 23, 134 authoritarian societies, 99–100 aversion, 66–67, 140 B baboons, 49, 59 Bafia tribe, 78 Balling, J. D., 64 Barnes, J. L., 123 batons (point straighteners), 39 beauty bodies, 56–58 faces, 54f, 55 HWR, 57–58, 71 inverted triangle shape, 56 landscapes, 63–64 perception of, 9, 129 social advantages of, 58 bees color perception, 59 perception of symmetry, 56 behavior. See also aesthetic behavior; artistic behavior defined, 12 functions of artistic behavior, 5, 11 behavioral psychology, 143, 144 Binet, Alfred, 68 biological functionality decoration, 10 functions of artistic behavior, 11 birds, 44–49 birds of paradise, 45–46 bowerbirds, 43, 47–48 canaries, 48 evolution of beauty, 45 honest signals, 45 Japanese crane, 48 lyrebird, 48 natural selection, 44–45 overview, 44 peacocks, 44–45 peahens, 45 sensory exploitation theory, 46 sexual selection, 44, 45–47 song sparrows, 48–49 birds of paradise, 45–46 Black, J., 123 BLING effect, 62 blue color, effects of, 59, 60–61 body aesthetics, 2–3. See also body ornamentation

body ornamentation body modification, 91–92 as fitness indicator, 80–85 as form of communication, 79–80 keloid scarification, 81f, 82f, modern primitives, 88–91 Mursi tribe, 78f, Paduang women, 79f, performance art and, 91–92 for personal advertising, 82–85 social-hierarchic nature of humans, 86–88 tribal societies, 77–78 as unifying collective force, 85–86 Wahgi tribesman, 87f, Body Play, Tattoo Time, and Piercing Fans International Quarterly (PFIQ), 89 bondage play, 72, 73 bonobos, 50–51 Bopoto people, 77 Borgia, G., 48 bowerbirds, 47–48 brain. See also neuroaesthetics chimpanzee brain versus human brain, 107–9 frontal lobes, 110 neocortex, 110 nucleus acumens, 111–12 occipital poles, 112 orbitofrontal cortex, 111–12 posterior middle temporal gyrus, 112 precuneus area, 112 as procrustean bed, 110–11 reaction to stimuli, 111 reward circuit, 111–12 ventral striatum, 111–12 brain modules, 110 brand fetishes, 69 Breton, André, 125 busses, decoration of, 98 C canaries, 48 capuchin monkeys, 51 Carettis (Sicilian carts), 98 carnivores, 16, 18 Carroll, J., 131, 132 Carroll, L., 122 Castano, E., 123 cats color perception, 59 OSL, 17 cave art, 25–38, 40–41 artists, 34–38 Dordogne, France, 1 religious and spiritual explanations for, 27–30 art magique, 28

Index } 161 art pour l’art, 27 entoptic phenomena, 30 gender dualistic theory, 28–29 hunting magic, 28 mythograms, 28 reindeer, 28 shamanism, 29–30 structuralist approach, 28–29 therianthropy, 30 totemism, 28 secular, naturalistic explanations for, 31–34 overview, 31–32 testosterone images, 32 Venus figures, 32–33 Vezere Valley, 25–26 Celebes Macaques, 60f, Chatterjee, A., 131 Chénier, André, 125 chimpanzees, 49–51 chimpanzee brain versus human brain, 107–9 red color, 59, 71 classical conditioning, 69–70 Clegg, H., 84 climate caves, 40 development of brain and, 109–10 work environment, 66 coffee bean scars (keloid scarification), 81f, 82f, cognitive archaeology, 108–10 cognitive functionality, of fiction, 123–24 collective. See group cohesion color, 58–61, 71 color psychology, 61 communication body ornamentation as form of, 79–80 decoration as form of, 99, 129 graffiti as form of, 102 compulsion as motivation for graffiti, 103 urge versus, 103 conceptual art, 131, 140 Conscientiousness personality trait, 6 corset fetish, 67–68, 71 corvids, 17 Cosmides, L., 122, 131 Costa Rican folk art, 98 courtship rituals artistic behavioral patterns as, 83 bowerbirds, 47 human aesthetics and animal courtship rituals, 49, 80 Japanese crane, 48 Wahgi people, 88 crime, graffiti and, 104–5 Crocchiola, D., 84

Cro Magnon humans attire, 27f, cave art, 27 reconstructed settlement, 26f, in Vezere Valley, 25–26 Cro-Magnon rock, Vezere Valley, 24 cult activity, cave art and, 28, 35 culture, 143–44 aesthetic impulse and, 3 courtship rituals and, 82–83 cross-cultural narratives, 120–21 cross-cultural response to music, 86 fertility cults and, 32–33 modern primitives, 89 perception of beauty and, 54, 58 Cunningham, M. R., 54 cutaneous (skin) receptors, 61 D dance, 19, 49 group cohesion and, 85–86 Japanese crane dance, 48 Wahgi people, 87–88 Darwin, Charles, 44, 49, 81 decoration biological functionality of, 10 folk art and, 96–98 as form of communication, 129 function of ornaments, 99–101 graffiti, 101–5 of living spaces, 2 overview, 95 prehistoric art, 38–39 of workspace, 2 Dekotora trucks, 98 Descent of Man, The (Darwin), 44, 49 design. See also decoration; ornaments adornment, 1, 4–5 authoritarian societies, 99–100 egalitarian societies, 99–100 deterministic approach to art and literary history, 124–25 Dickens, Charles, 118 Dissanayake, Ellen, 19, 74, 85, 88 adaptation theory, 130 modern primitives, 90 dogs color perception, 59 Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning, 69–70 dolphins, 17 dopamine, 111–12 drama, 118, 122, 123 Draper, Don (fictional character), 119 Duchamp, Marcel, 140 Dutton, D., 131

162 { Index E egalitarian societies, 99–100 electromagnetic waves, 58–61, 110–11 Ellis, Havelock, 68 Elsbree, Langdon, 120, 121 Emin, Tracy, 140 endorphins, 111 entoptic phenomena, 30 ethology key stimuli, 43–44 supernormal stimuli, 71 evolutionary functions of aesthetic impulse, 134–36 evolutionary psychology, 12, 144 evolution of beauty, 45 Evolution of Beauty, The (Prum), 45 existence, themes of, 120–21 existential functionality, of fiction, 123 F Falk, J. H., 64 Favela Rio de Janeiro, 4f, fear response aversion and, 66–67 sharp shapes and, 62–63 feet fetish, 73 feminine energy, in cave art, 28–29 fertility cults, 32–33 festivity, 18 fetishes of power, 65f, 72–74 fetishism brand fetish, 69 corset fetish, 67–68, 71 feet fetish, 73 fetishes of power, 65f, 72–74 Latex-Bondage fetish, 65f, overview, 67–68 psychological history of, 68–70 uniform fetish, 73 fiction cognitive functionality, 123–24 existential functionality, 123 function of, 121–24 overview, 117–18 social functionality, 124 Fischer, J. L., 99, 100 fitness indicator aesthetic behavior as, 7, 132 body ornamentation as, 80–85 decoration and, 10 defined, 55 men, 55 overview, 53 women, 55 Fixed Action Patterns, 43–44

flow, defined, 20 flutes, 38 folk art, 96–98 Asia, 98 Costa Rica, 98 India, 98 Japan, 98 Kassena tribe, 96–97 Malta, 98 Ndebele people, 96 Pakistan, 98 Philippines, 98 Sicily, 98 Font de Gaume cave, 26 food food opportunists, 8 food specialists, 15 role of spices, 66 stimulation-seeking and, 15–16, 65 Four Scenes in a Harsh Life performance, 91 Freud, Sigmund fetishism, 69 reasons for artistic behavior, 6 frogs, 46 frontal lobes, 110 G gender dualistic theory, 28–29 geometric symbols, 26, 28–29, 30, 38, 61 gibbons, 59, 71 Giuliani, R. W., 105 Goel, V., 112 golden bowerbird, 47 gorillas, 50–51, 59, 71 graffiti, 10, 101–5 as form of communication, 102 historic examples of, 101–2 motivations for, 102–3 origin of term, 102 pieces, 102, 104 tags, 102, 103, 104 great bowerbird, 47–48 Grotte du Sorcier (Sorcerer’s Cave), 35 group cohesion body ornamentation and, 85–86 social hierarchy system, 130 Gudmundsson, Einar Màr, 122 Guèguen, N., 84–85 guppies, 46 Guthrie, R. D., 31, 32 H habitat. See landscapes habituation mechanism, 124–25, 140

Index } 163 Halliday, T., 45 Hamlet, 139 hand stencils, 36–37 Haselton, M. G., 84–85 healing architecture, 66 Heerwagen, J. H., 64–65 Heider, Fritz, 117 Hendrix, Jimi, 125–26 herbivores, 16 apes, 50 stimulation-seeking and, 18 waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), 57–58, 71 Hohlenstein Stadel cave, 30 hominids, 32 Homo erectus, 16, 23–24, 108 Homo sapiens sapiens, 4, 24, 134 honest adaptive qualities, 45 honest signals, 45 hoofed animals, 17 hormones androgen, 84 estrogen, 55, 57 testosterone, 32, 37, 40–41, 55, 56, 84 hourglass shape (women), 56 human characteristics, 8, 10–11 aesthetic impulse and, 113–14 social hierarchy system, 8 stimulation-seeking, 8 symbolic (narrative; in search of meaning), 8 human figures, depictions of, 37–38 cave art, 41 Grotte du Sorcier, 35, 36f human truths, 121 hunting magic, 28 I identity body ornamentation and, 90 decoration and, 99 impulse, defined, 7, 134. See also aesthetic impulse Indian folk art, 98 infantilism, 73 Innate Releasing Mechanism, 43–44 innate sensibilities, 43–44 instinct art instinct, 131 chimpanzees, 109 key stimuli, 43–44 overview, 131 supernormal stimuli, 71 instruments, 38 intelligences natural history intelligence, 107, 109

social intelligence, 107, 109 technological intelligence, 107, 109 Inuit people, 3 inverted triangle shape (men), 56 J Japanese crane, 48 Japanese folk art, 98 Japanese gardens, 65f, jewelry, 38–39 Jung, C. G., 6 K Kassena tribe, 96–97 Keizer, K., 104 keloid scarification (coffee bean scars), 81f, 82f, key stimuli alpha stimulus, 43–44, 70–71, 74 aversion, 66–67, 140 beautiful body, 56–58 beautiful face, 55 beautiful landscape, 63–64 birds of paradise, 46 color as, 58–61 fetishes of power, 72–74 fetishism, 67–70 materials and textures, 62 micro processes, 74 negative, 140 overview, 43, 53–55 power objects, 74 predisposition to respond to, 9 of primates during mating, 49 savanna hypothesis, 64–66 shapes, 61–63 species programming and, 70–71 supernormal stimuli, 71 Kidd, D. C., 123 Kidman, Nicole, 92 Koffka, K., 61 Komar, Vitaly, 64 Kraft-Ebing, Richard von, 68 Krasnow, M. A., 19–20 L landscapes, 63–64 BLING effect, 62 The People’s Choice Project, 64 savanna hypothesis, 64–66 Lascaux cave, 26, 35 Latex-Bondage fetish, 65f, Laugerie basse, Vezere Valley, 26 law of least effort, 125 law of novelty, 124, 140 law of simplicity, 61

164 { Index Le Grand Roc, Vezere Valley, 26 Leroi-Gourhan, A., 28–29 Les Colombes poem (Chénier), 125 Lewis-Williams, David, 29 Lindenberg, S, 104 Lion Man, Hohlenstein Stadel cave, 30, 31f literary history, deterministic approach to, 124–25 living spaces, decoration of, 2 Livingstone, Margaret, 141, 143 Lohr, V. I., 64–65 L’oréal, 119 Lorenz, Konrad, 43–44 lorries, decoration of, 98 Lukac, George, 90 Luzzos, 98 lyrebird, 48 M macaques, 59 Mad Men (TV series), 119, 123 magical art (art magique), 28 Makapansgat pebble, 23, 134 Makapansgat stone, 24f, Maltan folk art, 98 mandrills, 49, 50f, 59 Manzoni, Piero, 140 Maori people, 77 Martindale, Colin, 124, 125 masculine energy, in cave art, 28–29 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, 39, 40f materials and textures, 62 Maya Indians, 77 Mehr, S. A., 19–20 Melamid, Alexander, 64 metaphors, 125 micro processes, 144. See also key stimuli key stimuli, 74 of sexual selection, 46 Milgram, Stanley, 72 Miller, G. F., 81–85, 88, 130 Mithen, Steven, 108, 109–10 modern primitives, 88–91 Mona Lisa, 140–43 monkeys, 51, 59 Morris, Desmond, 18, 51 Mosing, A. P., 84–85 motivation existential uncertainty theory, 19–20 for graffiti, 102–3 surplus energy theory, 18 ultimate/proximate motivation, 4, 6 multi-component tools, 108 Mursi tribe, 78f, music, 19

adaptation theory and, 132–33 group cohesion and, 85–86 theory of sexual selection and, 85 Wahgi people, 87–88 mythograms, 28 N narratives advertising, 119 deterministic approach to art and literary history, 124–25 fiction function of, 121–24 overview, 117–18 Heider & Simmel’s short film, 118f, personal staging, 119 themes of existence, 120–21 universal, 120- –21 natural history intelligence, 107, 109 natural impulse, 131. See also instinct natural scenes, 65–66. See also landscapes natural selection, 44–45. See also sexual selection Ndebele people, 96f Neanderthals, 17 aesthetic impulse, 24 in Vezere Valley, 25–26 need existential uncertainty theory and, 19–20 stimulation-seeking and, 19–20 neocortex, 110 neophile, 15–18 neophobe, 15 nervous system (human), 16 Nettle, D., 84 neuroaesthetics, 11, 143 aesthetic impulse and species characteristics, 113–14 brain as procrustean bed, 110–11 brain systems, 109–10 chimpanzee brain versus human brain, 107–9 defined, 110 dopamine, 111–12 endorphins, 111 Mona Lisa, 141 reaction to stimuli, 111 reward circuit, 111–12 skepticism regarding usefulness of, 112–13 synthesizing, 111 New Tribalism, 89 Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens), 118 Nietzsche, F., 18, 81–82 Noë, Alva, 112 Nuba people, 78 nucleus acumens, 111–12 Nuka Hivas, 77

Index } 165 O occipital poles, 112 O’Hanlon, M., 86–87 Old Curiosity Shop, The (Dickens), 118 Oliver Twist (Dickens), 118 On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 44 Openness personality trait, 6 optimal stimulation level (OSL), 8, 16–18, 20, 100 art and, 21f, narratives and, 124, 125 orbitofrontal cortex, 111–12 Orians, G. H., 64–65 Orlan (Saint Orlan), 91 ornaments body ornamentation, 77–92 as fitness indicator, 80–85 as form of communication, 79–80 keloid scarification, 81f, 82f, modern primitives, 88–91 Mursi tribe, 78f, Paduang women, 79f, performance art and, 91–92 for personal advertising, 82–85 social-hierarchic nature of humans, 86–88 tribal societies, 77–78 as unifying collective force, 85–86 Wahgi tribesman, 87f, function of, 99–101 OSL. See optimal stimulation level overstimulation, aesthetic behavior as response to, 16, 19–20 P Paduang women, 77, 79f Pakistani folk art, 98 Panama Blue bottled water, 119 Pani, R., 103 parrots, 17 Pater, Walter, 141, 143 Pavlov, Ivan, 69–70 peacocks, 44–45 peahens, 44f, 45 Pearson-Mims, C. H., 64–65 People’s Choice Project, The, 64 Pepsi Max, 119 percussion instruments, 38 performance art, 91–92 personal advertising, 82–85, 119 personal fitness, decoration as signal of, 95 personality psychology, 6 Petrie, M., 45 PFIQ (Body Play, Tattoo Time, and Piercing Fans International Quarterly), 89 Philippine folk art, 98

pieces, 102, 104 piercings and tattoos health risks, 80 modern primitives, 89 Mursi tribe, 78f, performance art and, 91 personality traits and, 90–91 as social signal, 90 in times of war and crisis, 90 tribal societies, 77–78 Pinker, Steven, 131–32, 133 play, 18 pleasure adaptation theory and pleasure circuit, 131–32 artistic behavior and, 5 need versus, 130 stimulation-seeking and, 18 point straighteners (batons), 39 posterior middle temporal gyrus, 112 power objects, 9–10. See also fetishism defined, 68 micro processes and, 74 negative key stimuli, 140 precuneus area, 112 prehistoric art cave art, 25–38, 40–41 artists, 34–38 religious spiritual (sacral??) explanations of, 27–30 secularly naturalistic explanations of, 31–34 Vezere Valley, 25–26 decoration, 38–39 overview, 23–24 prehistoric humans. See also cave art modern humans versus, 41 secular, naturalistic view of, 31 primary impulse, 7. See also prehistoric art primates, 49–51 baboons, 49 bonobos, 50–51 capuchin monkeys, 51 chimpanzees, 49–51, 59, 71, 107–9 gorillas, 50–51, 59, 71 key stimuli during mating, 49 mandrills, 49 overview, 49 procrustean bed, 110–11 Prum, Richard, 45 R Ramachandran, V. S., 73 red color, effects of, 59–60 Reflections on Narrative Art (Gudmundsson), 122 reindeer, in cave art, 28

166 { Index religious and spiritual explanations for cave art, 27–30 art magique, 28 art pour l’art, 27 entoptic phenomena, 30 gender dualistic theory, 28–29 hunting magic, 28 mythograms, 28 reindeer, 28 shamanism, 29–30 structuralist approach, 28–29 therianthropy, 30 totemism, 28 Renaissance-Studies in Art and Poetry, The (Pater), 143 reward circuit, brain, 111–12 Rickshaws, 98 Robbins, M. C., 100 robins, 59 rock art, 24 Rodd, Helen, 46 Roro people, 78 Rouffignac cave, 26, 35 Rumanian eggs, 97f runaway process, 45 Ryan, Michael J., 46 S S&M (sadomasochistic) role-playing, 72–73 sacral explanations for cave art. See religious and spiritual explanations for cave art Sagliaschi, S., 103 Saint Orlan (Orlan), 91 San Bushmen (of South Africa), 8 San people (of Kalahari Desert), 3 satin bowerbird, 47f savanna hypothesis, 64–66 scarification defined, 80 keloid, 80–81, 82f secular, naturalistic explanations for cave art overview, 31–32 testosterone images, 32 Venus figures, 32–33 semiotics, 79, 101 sensory exploitation theory, 46 sexual selection birds, 44, 45–47 musicality and, 85 role of artistic activity in, 82–85 Shakespeare, 139 shamanism, 29, 34–35 shapes as key stimuli, 61–63 Sicilian folk art, 98 Sim City (game), 66

Simmel, Mary-Ann, 117 simplicity (law of simplicity), 61 skin (cutaneous) receptors, 61 SNC (substantia nigra), 111f, Sociability personality trait, 6 social functionality, of fiction, 124 social hierarchy system graffiti and, 104 group cohesion, 130 social-hierarchic nature of humans, 86–88 social intelligence, 107, 109 societal experience, design expressions and, 99–101 sociocultural perspective, of artistic behavior, 5 song sparrows, 48–49 sorcerer, of Trois Frères cave, 30 Sorcerer’s Cave (Grotte du Sorcier), 35 special tools, 108 species programming, 70–71 spontaneous aesthetic impulse, 90 status, decoration as signal of, 96–97, 99 Steg, L., 104 sticklebacks, 59 stimulation and contrast principle, 47–48 stimulation-seeking, 8 decoration and, 96–97, 99, 100 existential uncertainty theory, 19–20 flow, 20 food, 15–16 food and, 65 graffiti, 102 herbivores and, 18 neophile, 15–18 neophobe, 15 optimal stimulation level, 16–18, 20, 21f play, 18 surplus energy theory, 18 stores of knowledge natural history intelligence, 107, 109 social intelligence, 107, 109 technological intelligence, 107, 109 street art. See graffiti structuralist approach to cave art, 28–29 Study of Instinct, The (Tinbergen), 71 substantia nigra (SNC), 111f, Suma tribe, 82f, supernormal stimuli, 71 Surma people, 77 surrogate experience, 121–22 symbolic aesthetics function of, 117–18 self-symbols, 99 symmetry, 55, 56 synthesizing process, of brain, 111

Index } 167 T tags, 102, 103, 104 TAKI 183 (graffiti artist), 105 Tan Tan Venus, 23–24, 32 Taste for the Beautiful, A (Ryan), 46 tattoos. See piercings and tattoos technological intelligence, 107, 109 testosterone, 40–41, 55, 56 artistic behavior and, 84 testosterone images, 32, 37 theological perspective, of artistic behavior, 5 “theory of mind” tests, 123 therianthropy, 30 Thornhill, R., 53–54 Tiki poem (Breton), 125 Tinbergen, Nico, 43–44, 71 Tooby, J., 122, 131 tools chimpanzee use of, 107 decoration, 39 multi-component, 108 special, 108 totemism, 28 town-and-city humans, 90 trance state, 29–30 transcendental homelessness, 90 tribal societies, 77–78 girl and woman from Chiang Mai, 79f, keloid scarification, 82f, Mursi tribe, 78f, Wahgi tribesman, 87f, Trois Frères cave, 30 Tuc tucs, 98 Tungara frogs, 46 U ultimate/proximate motivation, 4, 6 understimulation, aesthetic behavior as response to, 16, 19–20 uniform fetish, 73

universal narratives, 120–21 enduring suffering, 120 establishment of home, 120 fighting battles, 120 going on a journey, 120 love, 121 seeking fulfillment, 120 V Vartanian, O., 112 ventral striatum, 111–12 ventral tegmental area (VTA), 111f, Venus figurines cave art, 32–33 HTW ratio, 71 Venus of Lespugue, 33–34 Venus of Willendorf, 32, 33f Vezere Valley, 25–26 VTA (ventral tegmental area), 111f, W Wahgi people, 87–88 Walmart, 119 West Wing, The (TV series), 123 WHR (waist-to-hip ratio), 57–58, 71 Will to Power (Nietzsche), 18 Wilson, T. D., 17 Wonderwerk cave, 23–24 work environment decoration of, 2 healing architecture, 66 X Xingu people, 77 Y Yanomami people (of South America), 8 Z Zeki, Semir, 110 Zulu bracelets, 63f,