Evolutionary psychology has had much to say about physical beauty, but typically tied it into biological necessity. In the 1994 “The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating” author David Buss shows that every female beauty contest winner of Miss America, Miss World, etc had a hip waist ratio of 0.7. Point seven waist/hip ratio is also observed as the optimum ratio for female fertility. The bulk of the person rose or not as an inverse of the food supply, however the beauty ratio stayed the same whether viewing Marilyn or Twiggy.
Another evolutionary psychology text cleverly titled “Blondes get the Blues,” showed blue-eyed blonds had hotter brains but used less energy doing so, hence their survival in northern climates. The male who was attracted to blue-eyed blondes of a hip/waist of .7, had offspring that survived. Hence the passed on “beauty,” DNA.
It has been ages since I've read it, but Dutton's The Art Instinct dives into the same territory in a fascinating manner. (Side note, the Dutton gallery featured in the last Items of Interest is his daughter.)
Beauty having a physiological basis and art an evolutionary one perhaps contradicts some of the excesses of postmodernism, but it doesn't suggest what the contemporary artist should be doing instead. It's an interesting consideration, but a frustrating one as well.
I am sympathetic to Tolstoy’s conception of true art as an artist expressing an emotion that can only be conveyed through the means of art, whether music, visual art, drama. It is in this was akin to Collingwood (a few decades later) in his Principles of Art.
But I part ways when Tolstoy goes off on Shakespeare - something happens where he seems to lose the capability of judgment, and something else takes over.
It looks like Tolstoy settles some scores in Chapter 7, which we'll get to next Friday. He comes down hard on Michelangelo too.
In the late 19th century, there appeared a sentiment that we should stop measuring art through the lens of the Renaissance and the antique. Zola wrote as much regarding Manet, then Wilhelm Worringer set it down in an influential dissertation in 1906.
Evolutionary psychology has had much to say about physical beauty, but typically tied it into biological necessity. In the 1994 “The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating” author David Buss shows that every female beauty contest winner of Miss America, Miss World, etc had a hip waist ratio of 0.7. Point seven waist/hip ratio is also observed as the optimum ratio for female fertility. The bulk of the person rose or not as an inverse of the food supply, however the beauty ratio stayed the same whether viewing Marilyn or Twiggy.
Another evolutionary psychology text cleverly titled “Blondes get the Blues,” showed blue-eyed blonds had hotter brains but used less energy doing so, hence their survival in northern climates. The male who was attracted to blue-eyed blondes of a hip/waist of .7, had offspring that survived. Hence the passed on “beauty,” DNA.
It has been ages since I've read it, but Dutton's The Art Instinct dives into the same territory in a fascinating manner. (Side note, the Dutton gallery featured in the last Items of Interest is his daughter.)
Beauty having a physiological basis and art an evolutionary one perhaps contradicts some of the excesses of postmodernism, but it doesn't suggest what the contemporary artist should be doing instead. It's an interesting consideration, but a frustrating one as well.
I am sympathetic to Tolstoy’s conception of true art as an artist expressing an emotion that can only be conveyed through the means of art, whether music, visual art, drama. It is in this was akin to Collingwood (a few decades later) in his Principles of Art.
But I part ways when Tolstoy goes off on Shakespeare - something happens where he seems to lose the capability of judgment, and something else takes over.
It looks like Tolstoy settles some scores in Chapter 7, which we'll get to next Friday. He comes down hard on Michelangelo too.
In the late 19th century, there appeared a sentiment that we should stop measuring art through the lens of the Renaissance and the antique. Zola wrote as much regarding Manet, then Wilhelm Worringer set it down in an influential dissertation in 1906.
https://dissidentmuse.substack.com/p/abstraction-and-empathy-1-second
Take that notion too far, and the Last Judgment becomes an absurdity. This is why we judge critics on whom they advanced, not whom they condemned.
Note to everyone else: Michael's treatment of Collingwood is very much worth your attention.
https://michaelrushton.substack.com/p/a-is-for-art