The Purpose of Art


In their book, The Elephant in the Brain, the authors have a chapter on art, “one of the most peculiar and celebrated of all human behaviors”:
“(Art is) costly behavior, both in time and energy, but at the same time it’s impractical… Natural selection doesn’t look kindly on waste. How, then, did our instinct for art evolve?”

Their answer is that art may be like the proverbial peacock’s tail!
“What’s valuable isn’t the waste itself, but what the waste says about the survival surplus – health, wealth, energy levels, and so forth – of a potential mate.”
Of course, there’s a difference from the peacock: in case of humans, “both sexes are avid artists, and both are art aficionados”. Then again, in our species, “even males invest a lot in their offspring and, consequently, need to be choosy about their mates”.

Note that the authors don’t deny the other uses of art: self-expression; conveying ideas, emotions, and experiences; the evoking of strong feelings like awe; a sense of accomplishment etc. Rather, their point is that “showing off” is one of the most important motives for making art.

If you’re shaking your head at all this, then consider these two aspects of art:
  1. Intrinsic properties: What resides “in” the artwork itself e.g. colors, textures, brush strokes etc. Whatever adds to the perceptual experience;
  2. Extrinsic properties: What the consumer can’t perceive through the artwork e.g. who the artist is, how “original” is it, how expensive it is etc. In other words, whatever doesn’t add to the perceptual experience.



The conventional view places the majority of art’s value in its intrinsic properties. Whereas in the fitness-display theory, “extrinsic properties are crucial to our experience of art”.

Now think which view describes accurately how the world values art:
  • Can an anonymous painting ever sell for the price of a van Gogh?
  • You see something that looks like a sea-shell. Your value of it “as art hinges entirely on the artist’s technique”! If she found it on the beach, we don’t call it art. If it was made with a 3D printer, cool! If she chiseled it out of marble, then we go “Wow!” and call it art;
  • A live performance commands a price premium. Even though it will almost certainly have more glitches than one done with re-takes. Why? Because performing live is harder;
  • Isn’t impracticality a “feature of all art forms”? Clothing as necessity isn’t art, but if it’s fashion, it’s art… and almost always “conspicuously impractical, non-functional, and sometimes even uncomfortable”!

The fitness-display theory doesn’t sound so crazy anymore, does it?

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