Location
Main Entry - Personal Name
Title Statement Art and intimacy : how the arts began
Publication, Distribution, etc. (Imprint) University of Washington Press, Seattle [Wash.] : 2012
Dewey Decimal Classification Number
SAB Classification Code
Edition Statement
Physical Description xvii, 265 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
General Note
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subject - Topical Term
ISBN 0-295-99196-8 978-0-295-99196-2
Waiting
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*1001 $aDissanayake, Ellen
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*500 $a"A McLellan Book."
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*650 0$aArts and society.
*650 7$aKonst och samhälle$2sao
*650 0$aIntimacy (Psychology)
*650 0$aArt and society
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*950 $aSamhälle och konst$uKonst och samhälle
*950 $aArkitektur och samhälle$wh$uKonst och samhälle
*950 $aKonst och politik$wh$uKonst och samhälle
*950 $aKonstpolitik$uKonst och samhälle
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To Ellen Dissanayake, the arts are biologically evolved propensities of human nature: their fundamental features helped early humans adapt to their environment and reproduce themselves successfully over generations. In Art and Intimacy she argues for the joint evolutionary origin of art and intimacy, what we commonly call love.
It all begins with the human trait of birthing immature and helpless infants. To ensure that mothers find their demanding babies worth caring for, humans evolved to be lovable and to attune themselves to others from the moment of birth. The ways in which mother and infant respond to each other are rhythmically patterned vocalizations and exaggerated face and body movements that Dissanayake calls rhythms and sensory modes.
Rhythms and modes also give rise to the arts. Because humans are born predisposed to respond to and use rhythmic-modal signals, societies everywhere have elaborated them further as music, mime, dance, and display, in rituals which instill and reinforce valued cultural beliefs. Just as rhythms and modes coordinate and unify the mother-infant pair, in ceremonies they coordinate and unify members of a group.
Today we humans live in environments very different from those of our ancestors. They used ceremonies (the arts) to address matters of serious concern, such as health, prosperity, and fecundity, that affected their survival. Now we tend to dismiss the arts, to see them as superfluous, only for an elite. But if we are biologically predisposed to participate in artlike behavior, then we actually need the arts. Even -- or perhaps especially -- in our fast-paced, sophisticated modern lives, the arts encourage us to show that we care about important things.
List of Illustrations p. ix Preface p. xi Introduction: Love and Art p. 3 Mutuality p. 19 Belonging p. 51 Finding and Making Meaning p. 72 "Hands-On" Competence p. 99 Elaborating p. 129 Taking The Arts Seriously p. 167 Appendix: Toward a Naturalistic Aesthetia p. 205 Notes p. 226 References Cited p. 237 Index of Names p. 251 Index of Subjects p. 257