Explaining the peculiar human urge to create works of art in terms of evolutionary survival is a challenge. Darwin suggested art has its origins in sexual selection, and Geoffrey Miller at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque has run with the idea. He thinks that art is like a peacock鈥檚 tail 鈥� a costly display of evolutionary fitness.
Miller鈥檚 studies show that both general intelligence and the personality trait of being open to new experiences correlate with artistic creativity. He has also found that when women are at their monthly peak in fertility, they prefer creative over wealthy men (Human Nature, vol 17, p 50). But Miller admits sex alone may not explain the evolution of art. 鈥淚t might have originated for some other function, and acquired the sexual display function later,鈥� he says. So what other purpose might art serve?
Evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides at the University of California, Santa Barbara, think the drive to seek out aesthetic experiences could have evolved to push us to learn about different aspects of the world 鈥� those that our brain鈥檚 hard-wiring has not equipped us to deal with at birth (SubStance, vol 30, p 6). In a similar vein, Brian Boyd from the University of Auckland in New Zealand believes art is a form of intellectual play, allowing us to explore new horizons in a safe environment (New 杏吧原创, 23 May, p 44).
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Another idea is that art is a social adaptation. at the University of Washington in Seattle suspects that it is all about making an object or event 鈥渟pecial鈥� by appealing to the emotions through, say, colour or rhythm. She thinks this process helped increase our ancestors鈥� chance of survival by bonding a group together. This 鈥渕aking special鈥� could have started in magical or supernatural rituals, and later become more aesthetic.
None of this explains where our aesthetic sense comes from. of the University of California, Santa Barbara, suggests we could be biologically primed to find certain images, such as symmetrical designs, more aesthetically pleasing 鈥� more beautiful 鈥� simply because our brain can process them more quickly. However, he adds that we respond positively to some art not because it appeals to us aesthetically, but because seeing it or, better still, owning it is an indicator of status. Miller goes even further. 鈥淚t takes quite a lot of counter-intuitive education to distinguish good from bad contemporary art,鈥� he says. 鈥淢ost people don鈥檛 have the time to acquire such elite aesthetic taste 鈥� which is a form of fitness display in its own right.鈥�
Read more: Ten mysteries of you