The Artful Species Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution

The Artful Species explores the idea that our aesthetic responses and art behaviors are connected to our evolved human nature. Stephen Davies analyses the key concepts of the aesthetic, art, and evolution, and explores how they might be related. He considers a range of issues, including the consideration of whether animals have aesthetic tastes; whether art is not only universal but cross-culturally comprehensible; and the idea that our environmental and landscape preferences are rooted in the experiences of our distant ancestors. He argues that art serves as a powerful and complex signal of human fitness, and so cannot be incidental to biology. Indeed, aesthetic responses and art behaviors are the touchstones of our humanity.