OK.
I want you to imagine a really famous artwork.
I'll give you a moment.
So what did you think of?
I bet for a lot of you, it was a painting, perhaps a da Vinci,
like "The Mona Lisa," or "The Last Supper."
When we think of art, our mind often
turns to Renaissance-era painters,
but art takes many shapes, like sculpture, design, music,
dance, acting, poetry, oral history, and even
YouTube videos.
We even see bits of science in art,
think the golden ratio and the Fibonacci spiral that
can be found in those two da Vinci paintings,
"The Vitruvian Man," architecture, more paintings,
and even in this Rothko painting, "Untitled Yellow
and Blue," which looks like a minimalist Minion
and recently sold for $46.5 million.
That may seem like a lot, but scientifically, we
do find the golden ratio beautiful.
Studies have found the golden ratio selectively
activates certain cortical neurons as well as the insula,
which mediates emotions.
Rothko aside, there are some major evolutionary advantages
to art that go back tens of thousands of years.
I have a whole list of evolutionary advantages,
but I'm not an expert in art or art history.
So I'm super lucky to be joined by "The Art Assignment"
host, Sarah Green.
Hi.
I've been sitting here the whole time.
So Sarah, first I have to ask you a question.
I want you to imagine a really famous artwork.
What is it?
OK.
So it's Damien Hurst's "The Physical Impossibility
of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" from 1991.
And it's a tiger shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde.
Whoa.
SARAH GREEN: It's one of the most famous or infamous
artworks in recent history.
But I think it's relevant to this discussion,
because it shocks and distracts.
While you might expect to find this in a natural history
museum or lab, in an art gallery,
it's disruptive and attention-getting.
Also, it encourages a confrontation of death.
I feel like a lot of "BrainCraft" episodes
encourage a confrontation of death, as well.
How can you go wrong?
Artists have attempted to process and consider
death in many different ways through art.
And this one, I believe, does it extremely effectively.
Some think of art as a way to transcend death, to stop time.
And this piece, I believe, negates that false pretense.
We all die.
And all art will ultimately cease to exist as well.
Unless we get preserved in formaldehyde.
And even that's not forever.
Yeah.
OK.
So let's talk more evolutionary advantages.
Some visual arts can also be used to pass down history,
like cave painting, which depict hunts and communities.
And it can also be used to teach younger generations how
the ancestors survived.
Definitely.
Art is really effective in this way.
You can think about the history of mythological art
and Biblical art as extremely successful ways
of passing along stories without using words.
Or in more recent history, you can
think about state-sponsored mural-making
in Mexico following their revolution.
Artists, including Diego Rivera, were commissioned
to create large-scale public murals that
told the story of the revolution in an attempt
to cement the ideas of the new government.
There's an idea that the origin of art
was a sign of an elevated level of consciousness.
If you think that abstract thought was a defining
characteristic that makes us human
and separates us from animals, that's
also a defining characteristic of art.
We look for evidence of this ability
in other species like Neanderthals
or other evolutionary branches around modern humans,
as well as other mammals to try and define
how close they are to us.
So another advantage is rhythm.
Humans are one of the only species who
demonstrate a sense of rhythm, along with some species
of birds.
And it can be really useful.
Certain brain areas respond to different beats,
which allows us to keep the beat in our head.
And we can use this to do things like improve our memory.
So you probably remember when you
were a kid you learned things like songs
to remember the state capitals.
Yes.
And this makes me think about how
repetition and variation function in art
and how the human eye likes symmetry.
You can think about the work of minimalist artists in the 1960s
and '70s who worked directly with the idea of repetition
of identical forms.
And just like birds, we can use rhythm and music
to learn or communicate without the need for literacy.
In many cultures who lack formal education,
people passed on stories and information
through music and rhythm and song.
Yeah, and this makes me think about how
abstraction came into art.
In many cases, abstraction was a strategy
to make art more universal and less
specific to an individual culture or language.
And art like dance can help us find mates as well.
So dancing demonstrates strength, gracefulness,
and rhythm, which are useful for hunting prey, hiding
from predators, or just protecting offspring.
And those physical capabilities that make for a good dancer
also make for a good mate and provider.
And other animals have made this connection as well,
like the Peacock Spider.
It does a dance when it's trying to woo a mate,
as do many birds.
This dancing indicates interest or physical capabilities
that are useful evolutionarily.
And when you look into the history of dance or any art,
you often hear of the evolution of that art.
And I think that's a good way to think about it.
If you consider Martha Graham, a dancer and choreographer
considered to be the mother of modern dance, what
was so revolutionary about her approach
was that it was a reaction to and
a rejection of the more traditional dance
that came before.
So it seems to me that nothing that we or any other species
does is completely random, because when
you think about it, that evolutionary pathway that
led us to be the apex predator on this planet
also resulted in some pretty cool skills.
Yeah.
And many consider art to be an evolution,
moving from one style or movement to the next.
But I believe art isn't such a straight line,
that it happens irregularly.
But you know what?
So is human evolution.
Right?
Yeah.
And really, the evolutionary advantages of art
mean that it's more likely we'll reach adulthood to pass on
our artistic and musical genes.
And definitely click here and follow us over
to "The Art Assignment," because I
am featuring in one of "The Art Assignment's" videos today.
Thanks so much.
Bye bye.
[MUSIC PLAYING]