11 Art
Note:11@@@@@@@@@@
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,121
painting cave
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,121
between 15,000 and 35,000 years ago.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,122
earliest rock art appeared some 40,000 years ago.
Note:INDONESIA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,123
in South Africa, red ocher engravings
Note:100000
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,124
the use of red ocher as body paint
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,125
Art is also a human universal.4 Every human culture on the planet
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,126
painting, styling their hair, adorning their bodies, decorating their living spaces,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,127
It’s a costly behavior, both in time and energy,5 but at the same time it’s impractical
Note:DILEMMA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,132
What Is Art?
Note:LASCIAMO PERDERE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,134
“essentially contested
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,135
why people make and enjoy art
Note:IL NS PROBL
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,145
“made special,”
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,146
for human attention and enjoyment.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,150
while ecological selection (the pressure to survive) abhors waste, sexual selection often favors it.
Note:UNA BUONA DFINIZIONE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,151
we prefer mates who can afford to waste
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,152
survival surplus—health,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,154
Adaptation or Evolutionary Byproduct?
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,155
bipedalism is an adaptation:
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,155
Our ability to read,
Note:COLLATERALE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,159
contributing to our biological fitness.
Note:ARTE COME ADATTAMENTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,160
Steven Pinker,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,161
pleasurable but not particularly useful.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,163
it’s a human universal:
Note:ARG X L ADATTIVITÀ
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,164
art is costly:
Note:SECONDO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,167
Finally, art is old enough, in evolutionary terms, for selection
Note:TERZO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,171
PARABLE OF THE BOWERBIRD
Note:tttttttttt
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,200
The male illustrates the virtue of the handicap principle.
Note:HANDICAP...PRODUTTORE...DIVISIONE NEI RUOLI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,206
Female bowerbirds, in turn, illustrate the importance of discernment in evaluating
Note:CONSUMATRICE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,208
shop around,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,209
If a satin bowerbird population happens to live in a forest with an abundance of blue-colored objects, even a relatively unfit male might be able to muster a display that would be impressive in a blue-scarce environment.
Note:ESEMPIO DI DISCERNIMENTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,212
ART IN HUMANS
Note:tttttttttt
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,214
in our species, males don’t have a monopoly on making art—nor do females have a monopoly on enjoying it.
Note:DIFFERENZA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,217
males invest a lot in their offspring and, consequently, need to be choosy about their mates.
Note:LA COSA HA SENSO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,218
is more than just a courtship display,
Note:BIGGER DIFF
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,219
artist’s health, energy, vigor, coordination, and overall fitness.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,222
Scheherazade uses her artful storytelling to stave off execution
Note:ESEMPIO DI USO ALTERNATIVO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,224
Intimidating rivals
Note:ALTRA FUNZIONE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,225
gangs tag walls to mark their territory)
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,226
use wit to humiliate hecklers).
Note:A TEATRO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,226
many reasons for wanting to impress
Note:UNO STRUMENTO CHE IMPRESSIONA...CAPACITÀ
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,227
human artists don’t need to be conscious
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,229
important isn’t whether we’re aware that we’re using art as a fitness display, but rather the fact that art works as a fitness display.
Note:DISCLAIMER
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,233
portraying beauty and inducing pleasure.
Note:GENERAL WINDSOM UNO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,234
self-expression or communicating
Note:DUE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,235
These functions aren’t mutually exclusive, nor are they incompatible with the fitness display theory.
Note | Location: 3,236
COMPATIBILI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,238
“showing off” is one of the important motives
Note:UNO DEI TANTI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,239
our artistic instincts have been shaped substantially by this motive.
Note:L ISTINTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,247
Intrinsic properties
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,248
perceptual properties.
Note:INTRINSECO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,249
everything visible on the canvas:
Note:ESEMPIO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,251
Extrinsic properties,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,251
the consumer can’t perceive directly
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,252
who the artist is,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,252
how many hours it took,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,253
how expensive the materials
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,254
whether the artist copied the painting from a photograph. This is an extrinsic property
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,257
conventional view locates the vast majority of art’s value in its intrinsic properties,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,258
Beauty, for example, is typically understood as an experience that arises from the artwork itself.
Note:BELLEZZA...INTRINSECA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,261
in the fitness-display theory, extrinsic properties are crucial
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,262
art is largely a statement about the artist, a proof of his or her virtuosity.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,263
it’s often the extrinsic properties that make the difference
Note:LEGGI IL GIORNALE CHE PARLA D ARTE... IL TRIONFO DELL ESTRINSECO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,264
If a work of art is physically (intrinsically) beautiful, but was made too easily (like if a painting was copied from a photograph), we’re likely to judge it as much less valuable than a similar work that required greater skill to produce.
Note:ESEMPIO MUSICA ROBOTICA... COPIA DI UN DIPINTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,266
consumers appreciate the same artwork less when they’re told it was made by multiple artists
Note:ESEMPIO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,267
how much effort went into it,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,273
replica museums don’t exist, and the idea strikes us as a bit silly
Note:REPLICA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,275
replicas strongly suggests that we often use art as something other than a trigger for sensory or intellectual experiences.
Note:TESI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,276
Mona Lisa,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,279
80 percent of them said they’d prefer to see the ashes of the original rather than an indistinguishable replica.
Note:LE CENERI DELLA MONNALISA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,281
THE IMPORTANCE OF EXTRINSIC PROPERTIES
Note:ttttttttt
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,285
it might actually be a seashell. Did she just pick it up off the beach, or did she somehow make it herself?
Note:ESEMPIO DELL ESTRINSECO: ...LA SCULTURA CONCHIGLIOSA ERA UNA CONCHIGLIA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,286
This question is now absolutely central to your appreciation
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,287
thing on the pedestal is clearly pleasing to the eye. But its value as art hinges entirely on the artist’s technique. If she found it on the beach: meh.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,290
is endemic to our experience of art.
Note:È NEL NOSTRO ISTINTO: LA BELLEZZA È SECONDARIA... UN PORTATO DELLA CIVILTÀ... L ESIBIZIONISMO È TUTTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,291
we care about more than the perceptual experience
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,292
Consider our emphasis on originality in works of art. We prize originality and spurn works that are too derivative,
Note:COPIARE UN TESTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,294
our concern for using art to evaluate the artist.
Note:NN CI INTERESSA L ARTE MA L ARTISTA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,296
“We find attractive,” says Miller, “those things that could have been produced only by people with attractive, high-fitness qualities such as health, energy, endurance, hand–eye coordination, fine motor control, intelligence, creativity,
Note:SOLO L ARTE CHE SEGNALA GRANDI DOTI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,299
using techniques that are more difficult or demanding, but which don’t improve the intrinsic properties
Note:LA RISPOSTA DELL ARTISTA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,301
to demonstrate their fitness by making something that lower-fitness competitors could not make,
Note:IMPORTANTE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,308
continue to relish live performances,
Note:LIVE E STUDIO... GLI AGGIUSTAMENTI... IL PHOTOSHOP
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,309
performing live is a handicap.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,310
(e.g., lip synching is anathema)
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,311
improvised
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,312
the appeal of constraints in a given art form.
Note:ALTRO ELEMENTO: IL GENERE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,314
to patch up their mistakes with putty or glue.
Note:LO SCULTORE NN SI CORREGGE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,314
We enjoy art not in spite of the constraints that artists hold themselves to, but because those constraints
Note:FORMA E GENERI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,315
WHEN EXTRINSIC FACTORS CHANGE
Note:tttttttttt
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,322
lobster was literally low-class food,
Note:L ARAGOSTA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,322
harsh penal environment
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,324
how plentiful lobsters were in old New England.
Note:RAGIONE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,326
now it’s considered a delicacy,
Note:OGGI È PRELIBATA... PERCHÈ RARA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,327
aesthetic shift
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,327
skin color
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,328
suntanned skin was disdained as the mark of a low-status laborer.
Note:PRIMA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,330
only the wealthy could afford to lay around soaking in the
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,330
sun.35
Note:OGGI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,334
consumers unequivocally valued technical perfection
Note:PRIMA DELLA RIVOL IND... QUANDO TUTTO ERA FATTO A MANO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,335
prized for their realism,
Note:SCULTURE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,337
demonstrated the artist’s virtuosity
Note:REALISMO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,344
A vase, for example, could now be made smoother and more symmetric than ever before—but that very perfection became the mark of cheap, mass-produced goods.
Note:OGGI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,346
because of their imperfections.
Note:L APPREZZAMENTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,347
two spoons: an expensive, handmade silver spoon and a factory-made spoon cast from cheap aluminum.
Note:PARADOSSO DEL CUCCHIAIO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,349
consumers vastly prefer the silver spoon
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,350
silver is more beautiful than aluminum?
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,350
imagine showing the spoons to an untrained forager from the Amazonian forests,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,353
aluminum spoon is made to a more exacting standard,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,354
After attending to all the perceptual qualities of the two spoons, the forager might easily prefer the aluminum one.
Note:LA PREFERENZA PIÙ NATURALE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,356
The key facts, so relevant to modern consumers, are entirely extrinsic to the spoons. We know that aluminum is common and cheap,
Note:ESTRINS
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,358
factory-made goods are available to everyone, while only the wealthy
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,361
Painters could no longer hope to impress viewers
Note:DOPO LA FOTOGRAFIA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,363
impressionism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism, abstraction.
Note:NUOVI GENERI NVENTATI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,363
authenticity
Note:PIÚ IMP
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,363
representational
Note:MENO IMP
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,366
easier, but more precise, new techniques.
Note:ELEMENTO SPIAZZANTE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,367
digital cameras and photo-editing software.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,367
electronic synthesizers and pitch correction.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,371
Whenever we prefer things made “the old-fashioned way”—handwritten instead of printed, homemade instead of store-bought, live instead of prerecorded—we’re choosing to celebrate the skill and effort of an artist over the intrinsically superior results
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,374
Roman Mars
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,375
architectural movement characterized by its use of concrete.
Note:BRUTALISM...MODERNOSMO ESTREMO.CEMENTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,376
intrinsically cold, inhuman,
Note:GIUDIZIO POPOLARE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,379
requires a great deal of skill and finesse
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,379
Every little detail has to be calculated out in advance,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,380
there’s no going back to make
Note:UNA VOLTA CHE IL CEMENTO SI VERSA
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,384
WHY ART IS IMPRACTICAL
Note:tttttttttr
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,387
however exquisite the knife’s craftsmanship, however pleasing it is to the senses, it doesn’t qualify as “art”
Note:UN COLTELLO PERFETTO...XCHÈ NN È ARTE?
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,388
fitness-display theory explains why.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,389
advertise our survival surplus
Note:SCOPO DELL ARTE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,390
By distilling time and effort into something non-functional, an artist effectively says, “I’m so confident in my survival that I can afford to waste time and energy.”
Note:I MESSAGGIO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,391
waste is important.
Note:LO SPRECO È TUTTO IN CHI PUNTA SULL ISTINTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,397
Consider the difference between clothing, which is a necessity, and fashion, which is a luxury.
Note:MODA E ABBIGLIAMENTO... TITTO BEN VISOBILE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,402
High heels,
Note | Location: 3,402
TACCHI
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,402
awkward for walking and brutal on the feet—which
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,403
“I care about fashion.”
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,403
Neckties
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,404
cotton or denim,
Note:QUEL CHE DURA È BRITTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,405
silk, lace, or wool.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,405
polyester?
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,406
Food—as an art form—also needs to distinguish
Note:CIBO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,406
more than mere nourishment
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,408
Haute cuisine
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,408
artful arrangement
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,410
None of these especially improves the taste,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,411
DISCERNMENT
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,412
discernment—the skill of the savvy consumer
Note:CRITICO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,413
“Which way is high status?”
Note:LA DOMANDA DELL ANIMALE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,413
Like the female bowerbird,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,416
consume a lot of art
Note:COME CHI CERCA MAROTO
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,417
common
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,418
rare
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,418
An untrained ear can’t appreciate the genius of Bach.
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,419
feel the pea beneath 20 mattresses
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,422
We spend an incredible amount of our leisure time refining our critical faculties
Note:ANCHE DISCERNERE È UN ARTE
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,424
We’re eager to evaluate art, reflect on it, criticize it, calibrate our criticisms
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,429
We don’t want others to know that we’re inept at telling good art from bad,
Yellow highlight | Location: 3,430
we evaluate each other not only for our first-order skills, but for our skills at evaluating the skills of others.
