Preston Bradsher Blog 1

In Dennis Dutton's TED talk on the origins of beauty, he claims that beauty is not culturally determined, but rather evolutionarily rooted in humans. The idea that people are pre-programmed to find certain things beautiful was at first slightly disturbing to me. As an artist, I spend a lot of time considering what makes things beautiful to me and comparing my experiences of beauty to those of other people. To a point, Dutton seems to be correct-- there are certain things that people seem to find innately beautiful, and those things tend to relate to displays of virtuosic skill in various media. In thinking about various works of theatre, dance, visual artwork, and literature I can certainly see that common perception of what is beautiful is tied to how obviously virtuosic the feat is--a dancer who can do twenty fouttés and put her leg above her head demonstrates abnormal physical control, and Shakespeare's flawless iambic pentameter shows his/her/their intelligence and precise grasp on the English language. Works of art that reflect intelligence, creativity, or physical skill fulfill obvious evolutionary preferences that would allow humans the best possible chance of survival, so it makes sense that modern humans would remain attracted to such feats.

The thing that makes me struggle to get fully on board with Dutton's claim is the existence of modern art. I'm talking about art that shows no particular skill that one could look at and immediately understand the virtuosity of the artist. Pieces like Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," which is just a urinal with a plaque next to it, or postmodern dance that exclusively uses movement that anyone on the street could execute, complicate for me Dutton's claim that beauty must exhibit virtuosity. Of course, virtuosic works are some of the most famous and well-respected works of art, but that does not take away the experiences of beauty that come from these more esoteric pieces.

When I think about the most intense experience I've had with a work of art, I remember Mark Rothko's "Red Room" at the Tate museum in London. Walking into that room filled with enormous paintings that are, arguably, just red blobs on canvas caused me to break down into tears. I couldn't intellectually or formally explain this reaction; I couldn't definitively say that I was reacting to the sheer size of the works or the intensity of the color or the specific aesthetic placement of the red blobs. But personally, I know that I saw pure, unadulterated anger in those canvases, and that it scared me, and that it made me cry.

My point here is that some of the most intense experiences of beauty are entirely subjective. The pieces that felt intensely angry to me could have looked like an expression of love to someone else, or to someone who was hungry, like big blobs of ketchup. Pieces of art that require input from the viewer in order to bring them meaning don't fit with Dutton's idea of a universal beauty based in evolution, but I think they are some of the most important works. Or, perhaps the skill of being able to create a canvas onto which people can project their own emotions is virtuosic in itself. I really can't be certain.

I think that these pieces of art which require a viewer to look beyond virtuosity also provide ammunition to those who wish to defund art and arts programs. They look at such pieces as silly and undeserving of support based on their lack of traditional, evolutionarily-based beauty. American culture has such respect for science and scientific reasoning that putting art in a scientific context may seem like the only way to save it. However, I feel that reducing art and beauty to only their evolutionary sources would rob people of some of the most important works of art: those works that have no verbal explanation but which draw out and express the feelings of the viewer. I believe this kind of art is healing and necessary to a healthy population, and so, as idealistic as it sounds, I believe that art must be allowed to be more than evolution.