Is art preference in our DNA? (response to Conniff)

The primary argument that I drew from Conniff's article is that humans find certain traits (in art or environment or anything else) desirable based on our evolution and the survival instincts we've acquired. I think his idea that people try to make their habitats look like savannas is actually a good point, though the class took it very literally. No matter where you go, people like properties with large lawns and water and a view, and I think this is very hard to ignore. After all, there is no real point to putting a pond on your property, but people do it. However, I don't think he really moved past this point. The fact that I would prefer to live on a lake with a view and no lions doesn't really have any bearing on the art that I like. If I had to choose whether I liked a very realistic painting of a desert or a dense forest versus the ideal landscape that he describes done with fingerpaints, I would choose the uninhabitable one just because I personally prefer realistic paintings.

The section on fear does not seem to me to connect at all to his argument. Our evolution may lead us to avoid things that want to eat us, but the correlation to why we draw them is beyond me. If i were to walk through an art gallery and see a lifesize painting of a snake lunging at me I would most likely be momentarily startled thanks to my snake-fearing instincts, but I would still find it aesthetically pleasing. Being in the open ocean would scare the hell out of me but i still like to look at pictures of the ocean or storms because it is beautiful.

Basically, I think that humans do in fact choose or modify their habitats based at on instincts, but I don't think that a conclusion about art can be drawn from this. And I don't watch shark week so that I can learn to avoid sharks, I already do that. I watch it because I like violence and I want to see something get torn to shreds.

Erik


-"My friend said to me, "This weather's trippy." I said, "No, man, it's not the weather that's trippy, perhaps it is the way that we perceive it that is indeed trippy." Then I thought, "Man, I should've just said, 'Yeah.'"" -Mitch Hedberg