Aside from humans, artistic behavior has been attributed to species varying from bowerbirds to elephants. The most notable case are nonhuman primate species, and chimpanzees in particular. Some researchers have stated that the latter provide us with a window to the evolution of human art via the phylogenetic tree. However, little argumentation has been developed to substantiate these claims. This article undertakes a joint examination of empirical studies on 'ape art' and literature on human artistic cognition, with a focus on the capacities of intentionalist thinking, symbolism, and aesthetic sensitivity. Although aesthetic sensitivity turns out to be a potential parallel between human and nonhuman cognition with regard to art-making, little or no evidence surfaces to support the presence of intentionalist thinking and symbolic cognition among, for example, chimpanzees, in their response toward painting and drawing material. As a result, few reasons remain to consider chimpanzee painting and drawing as art. The evolutionary study of art is therefore unlikely to prosper much through primatology and comparative psychological analysis of humans and their primate cousins. Several implications of the present analysis are discussed.
Evolutionary aesthetics attempts to explain the human ability to perceive objects, conspecifics and the surrounding environment in an aes thetic manner -i.e. in an emotional and evaluative way resulting in a positive or negative appraisal -by referring to the evolutionary histo ry of our functional, cognitive make-up. Research has mostly focussed on aesthetic considerations made during landscape assessment and on the role of aesthetic elements during mate choice. Criticism has been expressed repeatedly as to the naturalistic, presumed to be reductionist methods and outlook of an evolutionary approach to aesthetics. This paper briefly reviews the outline of evolutionary aesthetics research and discusses three such critiques -functionality in beauty judgement, reductionism, and the recognition of cultural and interindividual differences. It argues that philosophical aesthetics is not in danger of being unjustly reduced to a neurobiological explanation of aesthetic judgement and experience, and that evolutionary and traditional humanities approaches can be complementary in understanding our sense of beauty.
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