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Darwinian Arts
and Beauty
Amanda Limongi
Universal Signatures
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Expertise
Non-utilitarian Pleasure
Style
Criticism
Imitation
Special Focus
Imagination
Dutton, 2000
Art as an Adaptation
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Cross-Cultural Existence
Ancestry
Young Children
Sources of Pleasure
Costly
Art’s Adaptive Function?
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Cognition
Propaganda
Sexual Display
Sociality
Stress Reduction/Coping
Art & Natural Selection
• Sociality
• Improvement of Skills
• Appreciation of Skills
Art & Sexual Selection
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Display Hypothesis
Costly Signaling
Status and Hierarchy
“Artistic Eye”
Pinker: Art as an
Adaptive By-Product
1. Hunger for Status
2. Aesthetic Pleasure
3. Ability to Design Artifacts
Special Case: Fiction
• “To instruct and to delight”
• Four main themes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Love
Sex
Personal Threat
Threat to Kin
Evolved Aesthetics
• Komar and Melamid – “America’s Most Wanted”
Evolved Aesthetics
Denmark
Kenya
Iceland
Portugal
Ukraine
Sources