The Art Instinct_ Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution - Denis Dutton [121]
Bell is defending a partic u lar theory of abstraction in painting by to the commonly accepted idea that music is abstract. He is if we accept abstraction in music, why not accept it in painting? His description, however, of experiencing the highest art has a much broader application: it is about how we are dragged down from what he regards the aesthetic heavens when we use art to reproduce comfortable emotions or to exemplify our treasured beliefs. “Cold” may not be quite right word for all of the greatest art, but Bell’s mountain analogy, climbing, an exploration, the achievement of a vista, does make grandeur of the Himalayas a fine metaphor for the greatest works of art
III
Before turning to the aesthetic peaks, however, I want to deal with three areas of jolly aesthetic foothills and the intellectual quicksands that them. These are the widely held views that the arts evolved build stronger societies or that they are intrinsically involved with morality, or politics. I shall also draw distinctions between art that have bearing on the question of what makes a masterpiece. begin with four assertions:
1. The arts are not essentially social . If you look over a wide range of group experiences, today and through history, there are clear associations between artistic activities and social life. Painted Paleolithic caves were places for ceremonies, and the evidence points to group dancing as having been a prehistoric activity. There is a sense of shared pleasure in being in audience enjoying a musical per performance. Sacred music in religious ser is for many people extremely moving, while on a rather different level there is a thrill to be found in the synchronized expressive dancing of corps de ballet. More personal are the rewards for instrumental players creative coordination required to make chamber music, and I’ve been by more than one choir singer that the intense plea sure in joining the single voice of a chorus is like nothing else in experience. I don’t personally know about that, but I have studied and engaged in sing-sings— continuous rhythmic singing and dancing through the night—in New Guinea jungles and have looked in on raves of the kind that became pop-u in Eu rope and America in the 1990s. It is a serious understatement describe these events as merely similar: they are, so far as I can tell, exactly same activity, except that the age range of participants in sing-sings wider and the electrical amplification in raves makes the music louder.
Described in this way, music and dance would seem to increase empathy, cooperation, and social solidarity. Human beings are an intensely social species, team players who trade ideas, relish each other’s company, to communicate, and create complex, integrated social groups to pursue common ends. Could it be that music, dancing, storytelling, and the other arts evolved specifically to strengthen the social health of hunter-gatherer bands, and that this survival value can explain the universality, tence, and pleasure of the arts?
Many of the most thoughtful theorists in the evolution of the arts have inclined toward this view. Over a century ago, Emile Durkheim described moral codes, rituals, and customs as functioning to increase social solidarity. His idea was widely adopted by social scientists as an explanation many social activities, especially those of a ceremonial character. In this tradition, Ellen Dissanayake has argued that singing and dancing have their roots in the turn-taking, imitation, and mutuality of mother-infant play. The gestures and rhythmic movements of adult dances and other performances grow from childhood and create a sense of belonging for every individual, fostering social cohesion. Ceremonial activity stretches from hunter-gatherer