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What Is Art For?
Every human society displays some form of behavior that can be called "art," and in most societies other than our own the arts play an integral part in social life. Those who wish to understand art in its broadest sense, as a universal human endowment, need to go beyond modern Western elitist notions that disregard other cultures and ignore the human species' four-million-year evolutionary history.
This book offers a new and unprecedentedly comprehensive theory of the evolutionary significance of art. Art, meaning not only visual art, but music, poetic language, dance, and performance, is for the first time regarded from a biobehavioral or ethical viewpoint. It is shown to be a biological necessity in human existence and fundamental characteristic of the human species.
In this provocative study, Ellen Dissanayake examines art along with play and ritual as human behaviors that "make special," and proposes that making special is an inherited tendency as intrinsic to the human species as speech and toolmaking. She claims that the arts evolved as means of making socially important activities memorable and pleasurable, and thus have been essential to human survival.
Avoiding simplism and reductionism, this original synthetic approach permits a fresh look at old questions about the origins, nature, purpose, and value of art. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and integrates a number of divers human ethology; evolutionary biology; the psychology and philosophy of art; physical and cultural anthropology; "primitive" and prehistoric art; Western cultural history; and children's art. The final chapter, "From Tradition to Aestheticism," explores some of the ways in which modern Western society has diverged from other societies―particularly the type of society in which human beings evolved―and considers the effects of the aberrance on our art and our attitudes toward art.
This book is addressed to readers who have a concerned interest in the arts or in human nature and the state of modern society.
This book offers a new and unprecedentedly comprehensive theory of the evolutionary significance of art. Art, meaning not only visual art, but music, poetic language, dance, and performance, is for the first time regarded from a biobehavioral or ethical viewpoint. It is shown to be a biological necessity in human existence and fundamental characteristic of the human species.
In this provocative study, Ellen Dissanayake examines art along with play and ritual as human behaviors that "make special," and proposes that making special is an inherited tendency as intrinsic to the human species as speech and toolmaking. She claims that the arts evolved as means of making socially important activities memorable and pleasurable, and thus have been essential to human survival.
Avoiding simplism and reductionism, this original synthetic approach permits a fresh look at old questions about the origins, nature, purpose, and value of art. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and integrates a number of divers human ethology; evolutionary biology; the psychology and philosophy of art; physical and cultural anthropology; "primitive" and prehistoric art; Western cultural history; and children's art. The final chapter, "From Tradition to Aestheticism," explores some of the ways in which modern Western society has diverged from other societies―particularly the type of society in which human beings evolved―and considers the effects of the aberrance on our art and our attitudes toward art.
This book is addressed to readers who have a concerned interest in the arts or in human nature and the state of modern society.
275 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Ellen Dissanayake
11 books17 followersEllen Dissanayake is an independent scholar, author, and lecturer whose writings about the arts synthesize many disciplines, including evolutionary biology, ethology, cognitive and developmental psychology, cultural and physical anthropology, cognitive archaeology, neuroscience, and the history, theory, and practice of the various arts. She is an Affiliate Professor in the School of Music at the University of Washington.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 16, 2024
First, I suspected this book would simply bring down the Western view of capital-A art by revealing its humble origins in basic evolutionary utility. An iconoclastic stripping down of High Art sounded good. But it’s more. It is also a take on art in general, including art as a “scared metaphysical essence” (p4). Ellen says, “My approach will be ethological or bioevolutionary. That is, I will be concerned with the evolution and development of behavior in the human animal — specifically whether one can identify a general behavior of art that is characteristic of humankind as toolmaking, symbolization, language, and the development of culture.” (p6)
Ellen follows William James’ method in that she separates questions of “importance, meaning and significance” from questions about “the nature of [art], how it arose, its constitution, origin, and history.” The former is concerned with evaluation, and the later with mere existence (non-normative qualities). James thought that they could not be deduced from each other (p9), consistent with early Empiricism. Hume’s oft misinterpreted idea — “is” does not imply “ought” — gets an implicit, derivative nod here.
Ellen answers the critics who think that humans and animals are sufficiently different. Many critics say that this distinction is due to our ability to use language and culture to modify our environments. Critics claim there is a universal human nature that sets us apart from animals. “In regard to this ‘universal’ of human nature, one might point out that opponents of the biobehavioral approach are themselves epitomizing this ubiquitous human tendency to oppose nature (genes and determinism; animals) and culture (human intervention and free will; us). Human ethnologists would offer that a more enlightened view is to consider culture as part of nature… Culture is a biological adaptation.” (p23)
To establish a view of art using evolutionary theory, namely the biobehavioral approach, Ellen explicitly names the common misinterpretations of the biobehavioral. The worst misinterpretation of the biobehavioral — “crude biological determinism” — is comprised of lesser misinterpretations such as the problems of limited human freedom, behavior overly reduced to reproductive maximization, and total mechanistic limitation. In connection, S.J. Gould’s experience singing in a choir is given as an example of how “human experience is too complex and multifarious to be unlocked by a simple key… Biologically predisposed theorists must recognize that by reducing personal and individual experiences like [Gould’s] to neurological or evolutionary elements, they are not exhausting them, or even explaining anything very salient about them.” (p33). (Notably, S.J. Gould is the one who coined the term non-overlapping magisteria to designate how science and religion are non-conflicting domains of knowledge.) Again we see a derived version of James’ and Hume’s old separation of questions, underpinning SJ Gould’s idea, which is used by Ellen to separate out and preserve Art’s mysterious complexity. No, Ellen does not iconoclastically strip art down to crude biological determinism. That said, Art’s mysterious complexity, as opposed to just its behavioral function, gets a nod at the end of her book.
Evolutionarily, the precursor to the behavior of art is “a fundamental general behavioral tendency to make special and to respond to specialness.” This behavior must have had selective value. Out of this emerges an “intricate, multiform, self-reinforcing, open-ended behavioral propensity. … For want of another word, however, we will call [said propensity] ‘art.’” (p106)
This “making special” is an “ethologically acceptable promontory” to get an evolutionary view. Under this view Ellen must leave the modern “high” view of art aside. It will turn out that this high view of art must be connected to a longer standing behavioral aspect that can be described and traced in an ethological approach. In this context we get a more clear description of art: the manufacture or expression of what are commonly called ‘the arts,’ based on a universal inherited propensity in human nature to make some objects and activities special. (p107)
This book is a vindication of High Art. In the context of discussing what art is for in the long evolutionary past, Ellen turns to point out that humans still need art because we have not escaped our prehistoric make-up. We need the “areas of human experience that the literate mentality has effectively banished: art as an echo of the natural world (now at several removes, what with concrete, central heating, and air-conditioning); art as integrator of experience, as therapist, as provider of order, meaning and significance (now disintegrated, illusory, fragmented, multiple). It is now increasingly common for people to attribute to art what in former days would be attributed to religion, just as it is common to call ‘aesthetic’ that type of experience that heretofore in humankind history was given either by active intense perceptual involvement in one’s surroundings or embodied in ritual ceremony.” (p189). And again Ellen, “To those who value it, capital-A art is a way of possessing sacredness and spirituality in a profane world; art-in-everything or everything-potentially-art is a way of imposing coherence (shape, integration) on selves and experiences that have fragmented” (p192).
It is interesting to consider that this final vindication for "high" Art follows this periodicity: the vast human evolution of prehistory; the pre-enlightenment; the enlightenment culminating in empiricism, modernity, and logical positivism; postmodernism or the return of meaning as fractured and protean consumeristic individualism in the wake of the failed project of modernity. Art heals or reestablishes what we had in primitive society, lost in scientific reductionism, and began to innately crave again. Art is somehow inculcated into our genes as, for example, the survival value of “making special,” ecstatic communal participation, ideas of a coherent meaning of the universe, and concrete ritual.
I second the glowing review that Nature gave this book. It’s complex yet cogent, even if I perhaps disagree with its apparent take on the philosophy of science.
Ellen follows William James’ method in that she separates questions of “importance, meaning and significance” from questions about “the nature of [art], how it arose, its constitution, origin, and history.” The former is concerned with evaluation, and the later with mere existence (non-normative qualities). James thought that they could not be deduced from each other (p9), consistent with early Empiricism. Hume’s oft misinterpreted idea — “is” does not imply “ought” — gets an implicit, derivative nod here.
Ellen answers the critics who think that humans and animals are sufficiently different. Many critics say that this distinction is due to our ability to use language and culture to modify our environments. Critics claim there is a universal human nature that sets us apart from animals. “In regard to this ‘universal’ of human nature, one might point out that opponents of the biobehavioral approach are themselves epitomizing this ubiquitous human tendency to oppose nature (genes and determinism; animals) and culture (human intervention and free will; us). Human ethnologists would offer that a more enlightened view is to consider culture as part of nature… Culture is a biological adaptation.” (p23)
To establish a view of art using evolutionary theory, namely the biobehavioral approach, Ellen explicitly names the common misinterpretations of the biobehavioral. The worst misinterpretation of the biobehavioral — “crude biological determinism” — is comprised of lesser misinterpretations such as the problems of limited human freedom, behavior overly reduced to reproductive maximization, and total mechanistic limitation. In connection, S.J. Gould’s experience singing in a choir is given as an example of how “human experience is too complex and multifarious to be unlocked by a simple key… Biologically predisposed theorists must recognize that by reducing personal and individual experiences like [Gould’s] to neurological or evolutionary elements, they are not exhausting them, or even explaining anything very salient about them.” (p33). (Notably, S.J. Gould is the one who coined the term non-overlapping magisteria to designate how science and religion are non-conflicting domains of knowledge.) Again we see a derived version of James’ and Hume’s old separation of questions, underpinning SJ Gould’s idea, which is used by Ellen to separate out and preserve Art’s mysterious complexity. No, Ellen does not iconoclastically strip art down to crude biological determinism. That said, Art’s mysterious complexity, as opposed to just its behavioral function, gets a nod at the end of her book.
Evolutionarily, the precursor to the behavior of art is “a fundamental general behavioral tendency to make special and to respond to specialness.” This behavior must have had selective value. Out of this emerges an “intricate, multiform, self-reinforcing, open-ended behavioral propensity. … For want of another word, however, we will call [said propensity] ‘art.’” (p106)
This “making special” is an “ethologically acceptable promontory” to get an evolutionary view. Under this view Ellen must leave the modern “high” view of art aside. It will turn out that this high view of art must be connected to a longer standing behavioral aspect that can be described and traced in an ethological approach. In this context we get a more clear description of art: the manufacture or expression of what are commonly called ‘the arts,’ based on a universal inherited propensity in human nature to make some objects and activities special. (p107)
This book is a vindication of High Art. In the context of discussing what art is for in the long evolutionary past, Ellen turns to point out that humans still need art because we have not escaped our prehistoric make-up. We need the “areas of human experience that the literate mentality has effectively banished: art as an echo of the natural world (now at several removes, what with concrete, central heating, and air-conditioning); art as integrator of experience, as therapist, as provider of order, meaning and significance (now disintegrated, illusory, fragmented, multiple). It is now increasingly common for people to attribute to art what in former days would be attributed to religion, just as it is common to call ‘aesthetic’ that type of experience that heretofore in humankind history was given either by active intense perceptual involvement in one’s surroundings or embodied in ritual ceremony.” (p189). And again Ellen, “To those who value it, capital-A art is a way of possessing sacredness and spirituality in a profane world; art-in-everything or everything-potentially-art is a way of imposing coherence (shape, integration) on selves and experiences that have fragmented” (p192).
It is interesting to consider that this final vindication for "high" Art follows this periodicity: the vast human evolution of prehistory; the pre-enlightenment; the enlightenment culminating in empiricism, modernity, and logical positivism; postmodernism or the return of meaning as fractured and protean consumeristic individualism in the wake of the failed project of modernity. Art heals or reestablishes what we had in primitive society, lost in scientific reductionism, and began to innately crave again. Art is somehow inculcated into our genes as, for example, the survival value of “making special,” ecstatic communal participation, ideas of a coherent meaning of the universe, and concrete ritual.
I second the glowing review that Nature gave this book. It’s complex yet cogent, even if I perhaps disagree with its apparent take on the philosophy of science.
December 10, 2014
I had to write an essay for my education degree on this book and Dissanayake concepts of art. Biologically, as creatures of evolution, we needed to ease our lived burden of existence, by selecting art as a force to maintain and make our existence livable. Indeed, a world where no music played, where no visual art displayed, no literature read or written, would be a unlivable existence.
March 19, 2009
A pretty simply argument so far, but shocking that biological interpretations like these are so rarely discussed in the world of artists, connoisseurs, and theorists. A healthy corrective to the dead end of contemporary art theory.
April 7, 2021
It was a hard and bit dry read, mainly because of the author's style, and not so much because of the topic. I liked the idea of art being an adaptive mechanism regardless of the period ( pre-historic or modern ), helping humankind to chew up difficult concepts and fulfill some of its basic needs. This is the first book by this author I have read. Taking into account Dissanayake's other studies where she broadens her ideas on the subject of evolutionary significance and the importance of art - it's a good start.
I would have enjoyed more examples illustrating her thoughts though.
The book is a good choice for anyone interested in art and who wants to explore things from a different angle. Dissanayake deliberately avoids any qualitative evaluation of art and art forms so anyone expecting to read about aesthetics is going to be disappointed.
I would have enjoyed more examples illustrating her thoughts though.
The book is a good choice for anyone interested in art and who wants to explore things from a different angle. Dissanayake deliberately avoids any qualitative evaluation of art and art forms so anyone expecting to read about aesthetics is going to be disappointed.
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June 11, 2013Original purpose of art was communal.
February 5, 2026
I have spent a lot of time thinking about the questions that this book poses - What is art? Why do we make art? Did art confer some sort of evolutionary advantage to early humans? If so, does it still have that purpose today? In evolutionary terms is it an adaptation or a spandrel? If have not found another book that asks these questions in the same way that this one does.
So I thought that I was going to learn a lot and get validation for my theories or explanations for why I may be thinking incorrectly. Unfortunately, I did not. So while Ms. Dissanayake gets a lot of credit for her questions, she gets less for her answers. She gets close, but then goes off track.
Her basic definition of art is "making special". That's a start, but I think too broad and too narrow. I see art as a mode of expression that lets us put forward ideas that cannot be expressed as well in expository language alone. It gives us a different way of looking at the world, so that it "makes different" more than it "makes special". It allows us to exercise our uniquely human ability to think of situations contrary to fact as a way of looking into the future or of thinking about things that are important but that cannot be analyzed rationally.
And assuming that art is "making special" then what is it for? Ms. Dissanyake ties it back into rituals which are also inherently about "making special," but I see that as a parallel development not a causal one. I'd say that art is more for communication and expression and for approaching certain kinds of problems that defy nuts and bolts solutions.
There are other ideas about what art is for that are not even really explored here. My wife just suggested that art is to quell fear. That seems plausible. And in the first parts of the book, there is a long list of things that art might be for that Ms. Dissanyake rejects because none of them fit well as a primary purpose of art and all of the listed goals of art are better served by other means. But why does art have to be one thing or have a single purpose? One of art's beauties is that it can be and do many things. Many behaviors have multiple purposes, and those purposes can change and expand over time. Long ago we discovered something great. Now look at all of the fantastic things that we have learned to do with it.
So I thought that I was going to learn a lot and get validation for my theories or explanations for why I may be thinking incorrectly. Unfortunately, I did not. So while Ms. Dissanayake gets a lot of credit for her questions, she gets less for her answers. She gets close, but then goes off track.
Her basic definition of art is "making special". That's a start, but I think too broad and too narrow. I see art as a mode of expression that lets us put forward ideas that cannot be expressed as well in expository language alone. It gives us a different way of looking at the world, so that it "makes different" more than it "makes special". It allows us to exercise our uniquely human ability to think of situations contrary to fact as a way of looking into the future or of thinking about things that are important but that cannot be analyzed rationally.
And assuming that art is "making special" then what is it for? Ms. Dissanyake ties it back into rituals which are also inherently about "making special," but I see that as a parallel development not a causal one. I'd say that art is more for communication and expression and for approaching certain kinds of problems that defy nuts and bolts solutions.
There are other ideas about what art is for that are not even really explored here. My wife just suggested that art is to quell fear. That seems plausible. And in the first parts of the book, there is a long list of things that art might be for that Ms. Dissanyake rejects because none of them fit well as a primary purpose of art and all of the listed goals of art are better served by other means. But why does art have to be one thing or have a single purpose? One of art's beauties is that it can be and do many things. Many behaviors have multiple purposes, and those purposes can change and expand over time. Long ago we discovered something great. Now look at all of the fantastic things that we have learned to do with it.
March 21, 2018
Love, love, love this thought-provoking volume about the origins of art in prehistoric cultures.
May 7, 2023
This book is really brilliant. It's about art but it also personally significantly changed the way I think about religion and ritual. Brilliant and interesting.
July 5, 2025
she is answering our questions about art and the artist so important to read
December 3, 2009
This book should be essential reading for anyone interested in Art and human identity. It is a very ambitious book that attempts to explain from a bioevolutionary perspective the ubiquity of art making throughout cultures and time. The premise, as her sequel book "Homo Aestheticus" expounds upon, defines art as behavior that gave a survival edge to homo sapiens over other species. It provides humans with a way of "making special" our existence and values, thus rendering our lives meaningful in the face of a random environment. She also describes in great detail how the transition from preliterate to literate societies forever changed the role of art from an integrated and central part of life to a form of expression relegated to an elite. She seems to hold a certain nostalgia, while still acknowledging the technological comforts and wonders of our times, for the integrated way of life of primitive cultures, which our biology was made for. We still have the same emotional needs we had as when humans lived in preliterate societies but have managed to change our environment so much that we have alienated ourselves from it. She also argues, and to a certain extent I disagree with her on this, that postmodern art and its fascination with text and individual relative truth does not fulfill the role that art should have in emphasizing what is important to society as a whole (that is the reason why it plays such a peripheral role nowadays according to her). I think that she generalizes too much in this last point. I believe that we share a desire to bring forth shared truths in art, but what are these shared truths? What form can they take? Do they necessarily have to take the shape of a preliterate experience? How can we not acknowledge and cherish individuality after the events of the past century? But perhaps in our dreams we are all the same. A very thought-provoking book.
Read
June 12, 2021I constantly refer to this book now in my thinking about art (and sometimes my long-winded discussions about art). I found Dissanayake's thesis valuable and grounding. I give it four stars only because, in common with most academic books, it's a little dry. Certainly, though, if one has any ideas or ideals concerning culture and community, Dissanayake can give much to consider.
July 3, 2018
I put it down about 2/3 of the way through. Ellen Dissanayake makes some interesting points, but the books repeats itself over and over, often veering off into pop psychology and biology rather than discussing what I hoped would be the focus: how aesthetics are needed for us to live.
But then I finished it.
But then I finished it.
February 23, 2011
I still like what I read, just don't have time now to finish it. It will come back to this shelf.
October 1, 2016
Excellent!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews